Keith DeCandido – Tor.comhttps://www.tor.com
Science fiction. Fantasy. The universe. And related subjects.Thu, 22 Feb 2018 07:16:13 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.2We Come in Pieces — Star Trek Discovery First Season Overviewhttps://www.tor.com/2018/02/20/we-come-in-pieces-star-trek-discovery-first-season-overview/
https://www.tor.com/2018/02/20/we-come-in-pieces-star-trek-discovery-first-season-overview/#commentsTue, 20 Feb 2018 18:00:40 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=337746“I dunno,” the Star Trek fan says with a sigh. “I mean, the uniforms are all monochrome, I feel like the timeline’s all messed up, they’re just rehashing stuff they’ve done before, it all feels so military with the metal insignia, and they’re killing characters off, and it just all doesn’t feel like real Trek, […]]]>

“I dunno,” the Star Trek fan says with a sigh. “I mean, the uniforms are all monochrome, I feel like the timeline’s all messed up, they’re just rehashing stuff they’ve done before, it all feels so military with the metal insignia, and they’re killing characters off, and it just all doesn’t feel like real Trek, y’know?”

But I won’t. Instead, let’s look back at a most uneven first season of Star Trek Discovery

This season has been a spectacular mix of really great and really wrong, crowning moments of awesome right alongside incredible head-scratchers.

There are five particularly frustrating elements of the show: two decisions that did significant damage before an episode had even aired, a third that showed a disconnect between how the show was written and how it was released, a fourth that probably sounded good in the planning stages but was a disaster in execution, and a fifth that was wrong-headed and completely avoidable.

The first was to set the show in the twenty-third century. As I said last week in my review of “Will You Take My Hand?” I don’t give an airborne intercourse that the set design and tech don’t look the same as they do in the original series. However, there are some people who do, and their opinions as viewers count, too. Yes, there are good reasons why they didn’t just mimic the tech the way they did in “Relics” and “Trials and Tribble-ations” and “In a Mirror, Darkly,” and I think they made the right choice given the initial decision to set the show ten years prior to TOS.

What I question is the need to set the show ten years prior to TOS. Why open the can of worms? Why not just do what The Next Generation did so well thirty years ago and jump the timeline forward? Yes, the last two iterations of the franchise—Enterprise and the BadRobotmovies—looked backward instead of forward. But that yielded the only one of the Star Trek TV spinoffs to fail in the marketplace, one hit movie, one hit movie that was not as well received, and one box-office flop. Moving forward, on the other hand, yielded three successful series that all ran seven years and ended on their own terms instead of being cancelled. Prequels are not the best model to choose, is what I’m saying, at least in this franchise. (Maybe it’s something about a space opera starting with “Star”…)

There’s absolutely nothing in the overall storyline of Discovery that requires it to be in the twenty-third century. Yes, it would require a war between the Federation and the Klingons after their alliance in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, but a lot can happen in a few decades’ time. Heck, the Federation-Klingon alliance went from solid to sundered to back together again just within the seven years that Deep Space Nine was on the air. Why not move ahead fifty years from the end of the Dominion War and have the Klingon-Federation alliance long shattered (maybe over the aftermath of the destruction of Romulus that was established in the 2009 film, with irreconcilable differences growing out of how to treat what’s left of the Romulans)? Over the years, the Klingon Houses have collapsed into in-fighting and T’Kuvma tries to unite them by sending them to war against the Federation, blaming the Federation alliance for everything that’s wrong with the empire. Yes, jumping the timeline means the Mirror Universe segments need to be either much different or trashed all together (though “Parallels” gives us the out of it being a different parallel timeline that isn’t the MU) and losing Sarek and Amanda and Harry Mudd, but I’m okay with excising those fannish indulgences. Yes, some good things were done with those elements (Captain Killy, the Vulcan Science Academy retcon in “Lethe”), but they were none of them crucial to the season, in my opinion. And the mycelial network and spore drive can be brand-new technology that you don’t have to come up with a reason to never have been mentioned again in any of the twenty-five seasons’ worth of episodes and ten movies that take place after this show. (Something they still haven’t done, by the way.)

Shoulda coulda woulda. We’re stuck with the 2250s timeframe now, so not much use crying about it (not that that’s stopping me or anyone else…).

The second issue was not actually starting the season at the beginning of the story, but instead with a mediocre prologue. Star Trek Discovery’s story actually starts in “Context is for Kings.” What happens in “The Vulcan Hello” and “Battle at the Binary Stars” is backstory that is good to know about in detail eventually, but not critical to get first. The season is about Michael Burnham clawing her way back to respectability. Also, the show is called Star Trek Discovery—starting off with two episodes that have nothing to do with your ship is off-putting, especially when those are the episodes you want to use to draw people to your fancy-shmancy new streaming service.

And just from a storytelling perspective, it would’ve been far more effective to be introduced to Burnham post-disgrace. Watching her being ostracized by Saru, by the Discovery crew, but Lorca giving her a chance. We would be given hints as to the awful thing she’s done, all the way up until Burnham gets the telescope that Georgiou bequeathed her at the end of “Choose Your Pain.”

After that, after Burnham watches the affectionate recording that Georgiou made for her, after seeing how badly it affected her, then we could see “Vulcan Hello”/”Binary Stars” as a flashback two-parter to provide the backstory. By then, we’re invested in Burnham, in Saru, in Lorca and Tilly and Stamets, and even in Georgiou thanks to her message to Burnham. Then we find out how this whole shebang started, and the clunky awkwardness of the scripting in the two-parter would have been leavened by having seen three good episodes prior to it.

The third problem is one that shows a disconnect between how the show was released and how it was written. These fifteen episodes were very obviously written in much the same way all the other streaming services’ original series are, in a serialized manner meant to be watched in a big chunk all at once. But the show wasn’t actually released that way, with CBS still clinging to the old once-a-week release schedule, complete with a mid-season hiatus. As a result, the hints that Lorca was from the MU and that Tyler was actually Voq were decried as predictable by an audience that had months to speculate about it. What was truly foreshadowing was criticized as being obvious because the viewership had too much time between episodes to chew on things.

The fourth problem was one that I mentioned several times in my reviews, and it never really got any better, as it was as big an issue in the finale as it was in the premiere. I appreciate that the Klingons only spoke their own language among themselves in theory. In practice, it was a disaster, as actors already slathered in latex have to wrap their lips around a nonexistent language that is very heavy on harsh consonants. Every time there’s Klingon dialogue, the whole episode grinds to a halt; it takes so long for the actors to speak their lines, you have time to read the subtitles twice.

And finally, they killed off Culber. This death was not redeemed as many had hoped, certainly not by the cheesy Stamets-talks-to-Culber’s-ghost scene in the mycelial network in “Vaulting Ambition.” Star Trek has generally been at the forefront of being progressive in speculative fiction on television. As an example, the number of SF TV shows where the primary lead is a person of color is vanishingly small, numbering less than half a dozen—but two of them are Trek shows (Discovery and DS9). However, they’ve repeatedly dropped the ball on non-heteronormative relationships, either half-assing it (“Rejoined“), botching it (“The Outcast“), or actively pretending such things don’t exist (“The Host“).

At first, Discovery changed that, giving us a wonderful relationship in Stamets and Culber, but then they decided to succumb to the oh-so-tiresome trend of killing off a gay character, which is not a section of TV Tropes you really want your show to be in.

There’s a certain lack of rhythm to the show’s story progress, which may be the result of the behind-the-scenes tumult going from a show run by Bryan Fuller to one run by Aaron Harberts & Gretchen J. Berg, and just in general, the show has about eight hundred and seventy-four people whose credit is “executive producer,” which is not always conducive to coherence…

Having said all that, the show has the one thing that characterizes Star Trek, he says punningly: the characters. In Burnham, Saru, Stamets, and Tilly, we have a core set of characters that are interesting, that have grown, that are fascinating (sorry…), and that are worthy successors to the core characters of the past five shows, from T’Pol, Tucker, and Phlox on Enterprise to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy on the original series to Janeway, Seven of Nine, and the EMH on Voyager to Picard, Data, and Worf on TNG to, well, everyone on DS9.

Burnham is a strong lead, a person who has an inherent nobility of purpose, but who also is, to quote her foster brother, a mass of conflicting impulses, as she struggles with the balance between logic and emotion, but coming at it from the opposite direction as Spock. Stamets is a delight, going from snarky and obnoxious—a scientist, a man of peace, trapped in a war effort—to the hippy-dippy engineer, as exposure to the mycelial network opens up the possibilities of the universe to him. And Tilly is a goofy-ass diamond in the rough whom we see being honed into a strong officer (hooray for Captain Killy!), but still one who has a ton to learn (like when to stop talking).

Then we have Saru. I gotta say that even if I liked nothing else about Discovery, I would think the show was worth it because it gave us Doug Jones’s magnificent character. Saru is quintessential Star Trek: noble, unsure of himself, complicated, heroic. The concept of his species is a fantastic one, and many of the season’s best moments come from Saru. There’s his reading of Lorca and Tyler’s escape from the Klingons to figure out that the captain and future security chief are there, using his instincts as a prey animal, in “Choose Your Pain.” There’s his stirring speech after Lorca’s duplicity is exposed about how it’s their ship in “What’s Past is Prologue.” There’s his “we are still Starfleet” speech in “The Wolf Inside.” There’s the compassion he shows to Tyler in “The War Without, the War Within” and prior to that, the expert way he manipulates L’Rell, playing on her love for Voq, but also refusing to accept her chest-beating about war in “Vaulting Ambition.” There’s his using a bizarre form of the scientific method to help guide him as acting captain, which he then abandons when he realizes that comparing himself to the likes of Georgiou, Decker, and Pike isn’t the way to do it, also in “Choose Your Pain.” And there’s his entire arc in “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” where he gets his heart’s desire and has it yanked away from him.

Even though the overall story didn’t always entirely work, there are individual sequences that did so very nicely, above and beyond the various great moments Saru had (particularly in the final batch of episodes). The solution to Mudd’s Groundhog Day time-looping in “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” was beautifully handled, and done so in a manner that provided spectacular character development for both Stamets and Burnham. (And we got to see Lorca killed multiple times!) The action scenes—never among Trek‘s strong suits in the past—were actually all very well choreographed, from the two fights on the sarcophagus ship in both “Battle at the Binary Stars” and “Into the Forest I Go” to Lorca’s rebellion on the Charon in “What’s Past is Prologue” to Emperor Georgiou tormenting L’Rell in “Will You Take My Hand?”

Unlike many, I do not find the revelation that Lorca is a nasty bad guy to be a disappointment. The argument—and it’s a good one, simply one I disagree with—is that Lorca went from being a nuanced complex Starfleet officer who maybe was pushing the envelope of the right thing to a mustache-twirling villain. The thing is, the mustache-twirling villain was always there, he was just lurking under Jason Isaacs’s charm and his attempt to fit into the strange universe where he didn’t belong.

But this is a person who left Mudd behind, who left Cornwell to be kidnapped by Klingons, who showed absolutely no evidence of sympathy for the tardigrade, and who generally was an asshole. And often evil hides behind a charming facade. The cliche about the serial killer whom everyone thought was such a nice person is a cliche for a reason.

Another complaint was that Lorca was too kind to Burnham because she looked like his co-conspirator in the MU—the thing is, they even foreshadowed that and everyone missed it. Landry was an idiot, a racist, and an incompetent. It never made sense that she would be the security chief on a starship, and she died incredibly stupid. But it does make sense if Lorca mentored her because she looks just like his lieutenant in the MU, as established in “What’s Past is Prologue.” That’s Lorca’s fatal flaw, his attachment to people in one universe or another based on their counterpart, which led to Landry dying stupid by being put in a position she should never have been in, and Burnham surviving to help stop Lorca because Lorca thought she would be like his Burnham.

The plot didn’t always cohere properly, and they didn’t spend enough time on all of their plotlines, and the resolutions were a bit too pat, and some of the plot choices were seriously odd. On the other hand, we have a great set of characters, we have had some strong suspenseful situations, some excellent character arcs and character journeys, and powerful action. The special effects are, of course, great, and the overall look is distinctive and compelling, and there’s nary a bad performance in the bunch, as the cast, from the regulars to the guest stars, having ranged from very good to out-of-this-world (er, so to speak) great. Sonequa Martin-Green leads the ensemble spectacularly, her intensity and capacity for facial expressions serving her well and helping her cement Burnham’s rather unique place among Trek leads.

The elements are all there for a great show, they just need to get the story structure a little better in place.

Keith R.A. DeCandido was at a convention with Sonequa Martin-Green this past weekend and got to give her an autographed copy of his book The Klingon Art of War. She proceeded to totally nerd out over it and geeble about how she was going to bring it to the set. Keith is inordinately pleased with himself over this.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2018/02/20/we-come-in-pieces-star-trek-discovery-first-season-overview/feed/62Marvel’s First Theatrical Success — The Blade Trilogyhttps://www.tor.com/2018/02/16/marvels-first-theatrical-success-the-blade-trilogy/
https://www.tor.com/2018/02/16/marvels-first-theatrical-success-the-blade-trilogy/#commentsFri, 16 Feb 2018 17:00:43 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=337294One of the most popular comic books during the horror boom of the 1970s was The Tomb of Dracula, which from issue #7 on was written by Marv Wolfman, with art throughout its run by Gene Colan, both grandmasters of the field. Focusing on Marvel’s version of Bram Stoker’s creation (itself inspired by the historical […]]]>

One of the most popular comic books during the horror boom of the 1970s was TheTomb of Dracula, which from issue #7 on was written by Marv Wolfman, with art throughout its run by Gene Colan, both grandmasters of the field. Focusing on Marvel’s version of Bram Stoker’s creation (itself inspired by the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler), Tomb of Dracula had as its heroes a collection of vampire hunters, some of whom were members of the Harker and van Helsing family from Stoker’s novel, as well as (among others) a reluctant vampire named Hannibal King and an African-American vampire hunter who simply went by the name Blade.

In 1998, a feature film starring Blade was released, only loosely based on the comic. It was only Marvel’s second actual theatrical release (after Howard the Duck in 1986, also a product of the 1970s comics market), and first success, as the film was a huge international hit, spawning two sequels in 2002 and 2004.

In the comics, Blade was one of a team, who hunted vampires because one killed his mother. He favored knives made of teak (hence the name “Blade”) and also was immune to vampire bites. Preferring to work alone, he did find himself allying with other vampire hunters on a regular basis, even befriending King, despite his being a vampire. (King only drank from blood banks and never took a human life.)

New Line picked up the rights to do a Blade movie in the early 1990s, originally conceived as a vehicle for LL Cool J. David S. Goyer was hired to write the movie, and he moved away from the studio’s notion of a spoof film, preferring to play it straight. Goyer’s wishlist for casting included Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, and Wesley Snipes, with the latter actually being cast. Snipes, a big comics fan—and also a martial artist, so he could do most of the combat scenes himself—took to the role quickly and enthusiastically.

The film version of Blade differed in several respects from the comics version. He was a “daywalker,” a person whose mother was turned while pregnant with him, so he’s an odd halfbreed vampire. He subsists on blood and heals quickly, but he ages normally and can walk in daylight safely. The obsession with hunting vampires remains from the comics, but only select other elements from the comics show up: Deacon Frost in the first movie (as in the comics, it’s Frost who killed Blade’s mother); King and Dracula in the third. However, the huge success of the movies led to the comics character being altered somewhat to more closely hew to Snipes’s version.

Snipes also was a producer of Blade and its two sequels, with Goyer writing all three, and sitting in the director’s chair for the third. Behind-the-scenes difficulties plagued Blade Trinity—Snipes clashed with director Goyer throughout filming, Snipes was under criminal investigation for his security firm the Royal Guard of Amen-Ra, and then in 2006 he was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for failure to pay his income taxes—which kept there from being a fourth film. However, there was a short-lived TV series in 2006 that aired on Spike in the U.S., based on the films, with Kirk “Sticky Fingas” Jones in the title role. As of 2011, the rights have reverted to Marvel Studios, but nothing has been announced with regard to working Blade into the MCU.

“These people are our food, not our allies”

BladeWritten by David S. Goyer
Directed by Stephen Norrington
Produced by Robert Engelman, Wesley Snipes, & Peter Frankfurt
Original release date: August 21, 1998

A young woman brings her date to a rave in an underground club in Los Angeles. It turns out to be a vampire club, and the sprinklers spray out blood (there’s a big sign behind the DJ that reads “BLOODBATH”). Blade, a vampire hunter, shows up and, despite there being only one of him and at least a hundred of them, he kills tons of vampires, though most just run away, no doubt frightened by his reputation.

The club is owned by Deacon Frost, and the rave is being supervised by his right hand, Quinn. Blade uses his garlic-filled silver stakes to pin Quinn’s shoulders to the wall and also cuts off one of his hands, then sets him on fire.

The cops arrive, and Blade beats a hasty retreat. He later goes to the hospital to finish off Quinn—who, despite being crispy fried, reawakens in the morgue. He kills a coroner and bites a hematologist. Blade rescues the latter, Dr. Karen Jenson, and brings her to the warehouse headquarters from which Blade and his weaponsmith Whistler are waging their war on the vampires.

Frost is called to a meeting of the vampire elders, where they chastise him for his activities. Things like the rave draw attention to vampires and spoils the harmony they’ve established with humans over the centuries. Frost, though, has little patience for that—to his mind, they’re predators and humans are just prey, not to be catered to and hidden from, but enslaved and eaten.

To that end, Frost has dug up an ancient text that Dragonetti, the head of the elders, says is untranslateable. Frost soon translates it, determining that he can summon the power of the Blood God to himself, but he needs the blood of a daywalker.

Blade and Whistler inform Jenson of the world behind the world, as it were, where vampires exist and exert huge influence over politicians and law-enforcement. Blade himself was born as his pregnant mother was being bitten by a vampire, so he’s an odd hybrid. Whistler treats Jenson in the hopes that she won’t be turned into a vampire, but Jenson takes matters into her own hands, using her mad hematologist skillz to try to find a cure.

Blade takes her home, and then a cop shows up, seemingly to question her about what happened in the hospital, but actually to kill her. Blade then shows up and beats up the cop, though the cop gets away. Jenson is pissed that Blade used her as bait to draw one of Frost’s familiars (a servant who isn’t actually a vampire—Jenson doesn’t realize he isn’t a vampire until the garlic-tinged mace she squirts him with has no effect).

The serum Blade uses to tame his bloodlust is starting to lose effectiveness. Jenson continues to work on a cure, but she also discovers that an anticoagulant, EDTA, has an explosive effect on vampire blood. You inject a vampire with EDTA, the vamp will explode. Blade likes this notion, and adds it to his arsenal.

Reluctantly allowing Jenson to tag along, Blade tracks the familiar to one of Frost’s holdings, a night club, where he finds out about Frost’s big plan. Quinn and Frost’s vampires try to stop him, and Blade cuts off Quinn’s other hand. Whistler shows up with a big van through the wall to rescue them.

Frost kidnaps Dragonetti and exposes him to the sunrise, burning him to a crisp. He also kidnaps the rest of the elders and proposes to Blade that he join him. Blade refuses, viewing Frost not as the messiah Frost believes himself to be, but just another dead vampire. Frost then goes to the warehouse, biting Whistler and leaving him for dead, and kidnapping Jenson, though not until after Jenson has found a serum that cures people who’ve been bitten and turned, reverting them back to human.

Frost’s terms are simple: Blade comes to his penthouse or Jenson dies. Whistler urges Blade to walk away—without Blade, Frost can’t do the ritual—but Blade can’t let Jenson die. He leaves Whistler a weapon with which to blow his own brains out lest he turn into a vampire and then heads to the penthouse.

However, Blade is captured—Quinn shoves stakes into each of his shoulders out of vengeance—and the ritual commences. To Blade’s disgust, one of Frost’s vampires is his mother—he turned her and brought her into his gang, and she’s been a happy vampire for the last thirty years.

Frost starts the ritual, draining Blade of his daywalker blood and killing all the elders, thus giving him the power of the Blood God. Among other things, this means he can’t be killed in the usual manner. (At one point, he’s literally sliced in half, and he puts himself back together without effort.) Jenson manages to free Blade and offers to let him suck her blood to restore his strength. He then takes on Frost, injecting him with several vials of EDTA, which makes him explode. (He also beheads Quinn.)

Jenson offers to cure him, but he needs the gifts his daywalker status gives him to continue his fight, so instead she creates a better serum for him. The next time we see him, he’s taking on vampires in Russia…

“In the end, B, you’re just too human”

It turns out that Whistler didn’t kill himself when Blade left him with a weapon. Instead, he was kidnapped by the vampire leadership, on the orders of Damaskinos. They tortured him for information, but he never gave anything up. They also kept moving him around, but Blade finally finds him in Eastern Europe and brings him home, curing him of his bloodthirst with Jenson’s cure.

In the two years since Whistler was taken, Blade got a new weaponsmith named Josh, nicknamed “Scud.”

Shortly after Whistler comes home, two vampires, Nyssa and Asad, break into the compound. They’re emissaries, not there for a fight—thought they fight anyhow, as this movie never passes up an opportunity for a gratuitous fight scene. Damaskinos wants a temporary truce and alliance to deal with a greater threat: Reapers. Damaskinos tells Blade that they’re the next step in vampire evolution. They have a greater thirst for blood (human or vampire), and they turn their victims almost instantly, not in 72 hours.

Blade is put in charge of the Bloodpack, a strike team of vampires ironically created to deal with Blade. None of them particularly like Blade—though Nyssa and Asad, at least treat him with respect, unlike Reinhardt, who starts right in with racial slurs—and Blade’s response is to go alpha-dog, and also put an explosive device on the back of Reinhardt’s head, to which Blade has the trigger.

Their first stop is a vampire night club in Prague. Sure enough, the “patient zero” of the mutation, Nomak, and a bunch of Reapers show up to chow down. However, it turns out that they’re immune to garlic and silver. The only trick that works on them is sunlight, they’re still vulnerable to that. Blade and the Bloodpack manage to defeat and kill many of the Reapers, though one of the Bloodpack is infected, and they kill him before he can turn completely; another, Lighthammer, is injured. They also capture one Reaper that got stuck and started feeding on itself, showing that the Reapers’s metabolism is so supercharged that they have to feed constantly, which doesn’t say much for the future of the human or vampire races. They bring the Reaper back to Blade’s compound.

Nyssa examines the Reaper, and it turns out its heart is encased in bone, so they’re impossible to stake—except from the side, where there’s a small opening. That will probably be important later. Nyssa is also able to extract pheromones from the Reaper, and the plan is to go into the sewers the next day and lure them in with the pheromones. Scud and Whistler also create a cache of UV flashbangs that will destroy the Reapers—but also the vampires, so they have to be careful.

The vampires dress in full body gear, but leave their heads unprotected because they are played by actors whose faces we need to see, so screw story logic. In the sewers, Lighthammer turns out to be infected, and turns into a Reaper, killing Snowman—Verlaine throws a sewer cover open, sacrificing herself to take them both out. Eventually, all the Reapers are killed, but so are most of the vampires—Asad and Chupa are overwhelmed by Reapers (the latter while beating up Whistler just for the hell of it). Nyssa only survives because Blade lets her feed on him, and Whistler only survives because Nomak deliberately leaves him alive to pass on some intelligence.

It turns out that Nomak isn’t a mutation, he’s an experiment—and also Damaskinos’s son. Nyssa is appalled to realize that her own father sent her and her team on a mission that got most of them killed based on a lie. Whistler is appalled to realize that Scud—whom he was just starting to like—was a mole from Damaskinos all along, as was Reinhardt.

Blade and Whistler are taken back to Damaskinos’s headquarters. Damaskinos still needs to breed vulnerability to sunlight out of his Reapers, and he sees Blade as the key. However, Nomak tracked the team and attacks, taking out his father’s troops all by his lonesome. Whistler uses the distraction to escape and free Blade. This time, Blade regains his strength by diving into the pool of blood that Damaskinos uses, and then beats up a ton of vampires all by his lonesome, ending with cutting Reinhardt from stern to stem.

Damaskinos tries to convince Nomak to rule by his side, but Nomak isn’t having any of that, and kills his old man, then Nyssa—wracked by guilt and anger—lets him infect her. Blade shows up, and he and Nomak fight to the death, with Blade finally winning by stabbing him in the side. Nyssa’s final wish is to die as a vampire rather than a Reaper, so Blade takes her outside to watch the sun rise.

“You might wanna consider blinking once in a while”

Blade TrinityWritten and directed by David S. Goyer
Produced by Wesley Snipes, David S. Goyer, Lynn Harris, & Peter Frankfurt
Original release date: December 8, 2004

A group of vampires led by Danica Talos travel to Iraq and unearth the tomb of Dracula (ahem), who was the original vampire. The vampires who did that also frame Blade for murder by filming him and Whistler going after a nest of vampires—but one is a human disguised as a vampire, so when Blade kills him, he doesn’t disintegrate into ash.

As it is, Blade is starting to gain a rep from all the familiars he’s killed, as they leave actual corpses behind with evidence on them. Two federal agents have been chasing Blade for quite a while, and they lead a raid on Blade and Whistler’s compound, during which Whistler is killed and Blade is arrested.

A pop psychologist is brought in by the local chief of police to evaluate Blade (both the shrink and the chief were on a chat show earlier in the movie, pooh-poohing the whole notion of vampires while condemning Blade’s vigilantism). Said shrink has Blade committed, with the chief’s support, to the FBI’s annoyance. However, both shrink and chief are familiars to Talos, and she and her gang come in posing as staff from a mental institution.

Blade is rescued by two people, one of whom is Whistler’s daughter. Abby was conceived during a one-night stand after Whistler’s family was killed. Abby tracked her father down and started hunting vampires on her own. She’s gathered a team called the Nightstalkers, which also includes Hannibal King—a former vampire who was cured—and it’s the two of them who rescue Blade.

They bring Blade to their HQ to meet the rest of the team: Hedges, who makes the gadgets, Sommerfield, a blind woman who is their science expert, and Dex, their mechanic. Also present is Sommerfield’s daughter Zoe. Blade is less than impressed with these amateur vampire hunters in general and with King’s smartass attitude in particular, but as they point out, he’s got nowhere else to go.

There’s a bigger issue, too. King and Abby reveal that the original vampire—whom Bram Stoker called Dracula, and who now is going by Drake—has been revived. Talos is hoping that Drake will aid them in eliminating their weaknesses. Sommerfield is also working on a virus that will kill only vampires, and Drake’s blood would make it one hundred percent effective.

Blade, King, and Abby question every familiar they can find until they track down Drake. However, he kicks their asses six ways from Sunday—turns out he can survive in sunlight, and neither silver nor garlic nor EDTA affect him.

King is wounded, and while he recovers, Abby and Blade check out a blood farm that Talos uses—milking homeless people, basically—and take it down, killing the police chief familiar in the bargain.

While they’re gone, Drake attacks the Nightstalkers’ compound, killing Sommerfield, Hedges, and Dex, and kidnapping King and Zoe. Talos wants to convert King back into a vampire, starve him, and then give him Zoe to feed on when the thirst is so desperate he can’t stand it anymore.

However, King reveals that all the Nightstalkers have tracking devices on them, and sure enough, Blade and a very pissed-off Abby (okay, Blade’s pissed, too, but he’s always like that) show up to rescue King—but also to stop Drake. Sommerfield left them a present before she died: a formula for the virus that, when it interacts with Drake’s blood, will turn into an airborne pathogen that will kill any vampire it comes into contact with. They’re only able to make enough to put into one arrowhead, which Abby carries in her quiver.

King is rescued, and has to face off against the dogs that Talos’s people have vampirized as well as Grimwood, while Abby takes out the various redshirt vampires, leaving Drake to Blade. The pair of them start out swordfighting, then move on to hand to hand. Blade holds his own—barely—but nothing he does has any effect on Drake. Abby tries to shoot him with the virus arrow, but Drake catches it and tosses it aside. Blade, however, manages to grab the arrow off the floor and stab Drake with it, killing him and also making the virus airborne and killing everyone else.

Blade seems to also succumb to the virus—Sommerfield had no way of knowing if a halfbreed like Blade would be affected—but while in the morgue, he wakes up and lives to kick ass another day.

“We were gonna go with ‘the Care Bears,’ but that was taken”

First of all, we’ve been hearing a lot the last couple years about how Deadpool was supposedly Marvel’s first R-rated feature and how this weekend’s Black Panther is the first black Marvel superhero to get a movie, when in fact, Blade accomplished both those things already twenty years ago. And we’re not talking an obscure, forgotten film, we’re talking a big international success that spawned two very successful sequels! Good job, entertainment journalists!

In truth, the character Wesley Snipes plays in these three movies bears very little resemblance to the character from the comics. The Blade that Wolfman and Colan created in the 1970s was an engaging smartass, a bit of a loner who nonetheless was devoted to his friends (particularly Hannibal King). Snipes instead has chosen to play him as a stoic hardass who barely changes his facial expression.

It’s maddening because Snipes is one of the most versatile actors out there. He built his reputation on an impressive variety of roles, from comedy in places like Major League and White Men Can’t Jump to powerful drama in New Jack City and Mo’ Better Blues to solid action roles in Demolition Man and Passenger 57. He slid effortlessly from a vicious drug lord in Sugar Hill to a drag queen in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. And then he winds up with a part that could—and, honestly, has proven to—be his defining role, and his approach is to give him no personality whatsoever.

What the role does do is give Snipes a chance to show off his martial arts skills. He started training at the age of twelve, and even his action roles haven’t given him the opportunity to show off his skills on film the way playing Blade has. Snipes does his own fight choreography—he’s credited for it in each film, along with Jeff Ward in Blade; Ward, Clayton J. Barber, and co-star Donnie Yen in Blade II; and Chuck Jefferys in Trinity—and it pays off. All three movies are a joy to watch in terms of fight scenes, as the hand-to-hand action is superlative.

In Blade II in particular, that’s all there is to it. All three movies have pretty thin plots, but it stands out in the second one more than the other two, as the first has the world-building and exposition to flesh it out (every vampire story has to establish exactly how vampirism works in this iteration of it), and the third gives us a veritable truckload of Ryan Reynolds snark to keep things moving.

The second movie is often considered the strongest because it has the most famous director, but that’s simplistic to my mind. For starters, The Matrix came out between the first two movies, and the misbegotten influence of that overrated piece of nonsense is all over Blade II. (Yes, I really really dislike The Matrix, why do you ask?) The action and cinematography is tiresomely stylized, far more so than the other two.

And there really isn’t an entire movie’s worth of story here, as evidenced by how little time is spent on the story and how much of it is spent on action scenes. The actions scenes are generally pretty good, mind you, but it covers up the thin story, which isn’t even particularly well told. For starters, it takes the wind out of the sails of the story to have Blade work with vampires when Blade himself shows no actual emotion regarding it, by virtue of never showing emotion ever. At least we get Kris Kristofferson’s bitching as Whistler, though that’s annoying, too, because Whistler had a strong and powerful death scene in Blade and they just reversed it totally unconvincingly in Blade II. Lip service is paid to Blade not entirely trusting Whistler and concern that it’ll take him a while to get over the thirst, but absolutely nothing is done with it. Whistler’s just, y’know, back and stuff. And when Scud reveals himself to be a mole, Blade tells us he knew all along and reveals that he fixed the detonator on the bomb he’d attached to Reinhardt—but that makes no sense, as Scud has access to way too much info for that to be safe or smart. Yes yes yes, “keep your enemies close and your enemies closer,” but Jesus. Also the grudging respect between Blade and Nyssa has no room to breathe because, again, Snipes plays Blade as a statue.

At least Leonor Varela makes Nyssa’s struggles interesting, which is more than can be said for N’Bushe Wright’s lifeless performance as Jenson in the first movie. She’s set up for a return in subsequent films—and you gotta think a hematologist would be a handy ally—but her bland performance means she’s not missed at all in the other two films, and really damages the effectiveness of the first.

So does the choice in villain, which is a problem throughout all three. Neither Stephen Dorff’s flaccid Frost nor Thomas Krestchmann’s Nosferatu-lite Damaskinos nor Dominic Purcell’s utter inability to show depth and nuance as Drake serve the films well. At least they have secondary villains to pick up the slack, from Donal Logue’s batshit crazy Quinn in the first film to the always-brilliant Ron Perlman as Reinhardt in the second movie to Parker Posey vamping it up (sorry…) as Talos in Trinity.

It’s fun to watch these movies two decades later and remember who all was in them. Besides Logue (currently Bullock in Gotham), Perlman (later starring as Hellboy), and Posey (soon to be in Superman Returns), you’ve got Udo Kier (who starred in several vampire films of the 1960s and 1970s) and Judson Scott (Joachim from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) in Blade; Danny John-Jules (Cat from Red Dwarf), Norman Reedus (Daryl from The Walking Dead), and Tony Curran (the Invisible Man in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) in Blade II; and Patton Oswalt (the Koenigs on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), James Remar (Gambi in Black Lightning), eternal character actors Christopher Heyerdahl and Callum Keith Rennie, and the aforementioned Reynolds in Trinity.

Seriously, you gotta figure Reynolds just showed a reel of his bits as King in Trinity when he auditioned for Deadpool. “Fuck me sideways!” “You cock-juggling thunder-cunt!” “How about you take a sugar-frosted fuck off my dick?” And so on. Reynolds makes the movie, his barrage of obnoxiousness—not to mention his spectacular ability to take a punch and get beat up well—serving as a nice palliative to Blade’s hyper-competenece and glacier-like mien. This was Reynolds’s first role that wasn’t in a kids program or a goofy comedy, and he really did make the most of it.

For all that these three movies have issues, though, they’re tremendous fun. The visual effects still hold up twenty years later (which can’t be said for all the movies from this era), and the fight choreography is superb. The vampire lore isn’t going to make anyone gasp with how complex and original it is, or anything, but at least it avoids overcomplicating everything with nonsense (I’m looking at you, Underworld franchise), and it all holds together, more or less. There’s a certain amount of repetition that’s tiresome, though. Two of the three movies have stealing Blade’s blood as a plot point, two of them have major battles in raves, two of them have Whistler dying, two of them have the bad guy throwing a small child at Blade to distract him (really!), and so on.

Most of all, though, this was finally a series of theatrically released movies that Marvel could point to and call a hit. After a string of feature films that either never got released (Fantastic Four), only got released sporadically (The Punisher, Captain America), or never should’ve been released (Howard the Duck), Marvel finally got one of its heroes onto the big screen in a manner that people actually liked and wanted to see more of.

It was a harbinger of things to come, obviously, as the dominoes all started to fall after this. Next week, we’ll look at the next domino, 2000’s X-Men.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2018/02/16/marvels-first-theatrical-success-the-blade-trilogy/feed/40A Waterskiing Dog — Star Trek Discovery’s “Will You Take My Hand?”https://www.tor.com/2018/02/12/a-waterskiing-dog-star-trek-discoverys-will-you-take-my-hand/
https://www.tor.com/2018/02/12/a-waterskiing-dog-star-trek-discoverys-will-you-take-my-hand/#commentsMon, 12 Feb 2018 18:30:45 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=336271At one point during “Will You Take My Hand?”, the season finale of Star Trek Discovery, Tyler is explaining the ease with which he is able to chat with Klingons in the vicinity of the Orion embassy—which, the Orions being glorified pirates, means it’s pretty much space Vegas—to Burnham. “I’m a human who speaks Klingon. […]]]>

At one point during “Will You Take My Hand?”, the season finale of Star Trek Discovery, Tyler is explaining the ease with which he is able to chat with Klingons in the vicinity of the Orion embassy—which, the Orions being glorified pirates, means it’s pretty much space Vegas—to Burnham. “I’m a human who speaks Klingon. To them, that’s like a dog that can waterski.”

I really doubt that executive producers Gretchen J. Berg, Aaron Harberts, and Akiva Goldsman, who among them wrote and directed the episode, meant that line to be a metaphor for the episode, but it totally fits. Because a dog that can waterski is actually really really cool and would probably be fun to watch. But it’s also something that you kinda stare at and go, “Hang on, why exactly did that just happen?” And there’s a lot of both those reactions in “Will You Take My Hand?”

Let’s start with the good: the landing party sequence was tremendous fun. I enjoyed the Klingon gambling, I loved how that triggered Burnham’s PTSD hearing Klingons laugh the way the ones who killed her parents laughed, I enjoyed Tilly role-playing as a weapons dealer while making sure to help keep Tyler from getting too close to Burnham and messing with her mojo, and hey, look, it’s ClintHoward! Of course Georgiou used sex as a weapon, she’s from the Mirror Universe, home of Captain’s Woman Marlena Moreau and IntendantKiraNerys. And it worked—her Orion prostitutes (both genders!) gave up the location of the abandoned temple to Molor.

(The Klingon historian in me—your humble reviewer has written a crapton of Klingon fiction, including The Klingon Art of War, a tome that has been used as set decoration on AfterTrek—adores the idea of a temple to Molor, by the way. Established back on TNG as the brother of Kahless, and someone against whom Kahless fought for days over a lie, it makes perfect sense that there’d be a religion to worship him.)

Tilly gets lots to do in this episode, and that’s all to the good, as Mary Wiseman is a delight. We get Tilly in several modes: the word vomit when she meets Georgiou and realizes that it’s not really the mainline captain but the MU’s emperor, the glee with which she gets back into “Captain Killy” mode by threatening the arms dealer, the devotion to Burnham, the willingness to eat alien food without knowing what it is (and then spitting it out when she realizes it’s an endangered species), the lack of judgment in going to the space opium den, and her keeping it together while high when she needs to report that the drone is really a bomb.

For pure fangooberish glee, I loved watching Georgiou beat up L’Rell in the brig, not because I enjoyed watching her pick on a prisoner, but because I will never get tired of watching Michelle Yeoh do choreographed fighting, at which she is one of the best humans in the world.

It was really nice to see Amanda again, and the scene with her and Burnham was lovely. Amanda has not been served well by the screen versions of Trek—it’s been left to tie-in fiction to flesh her out, since on screen she’s been barely more than a cipher, either portrayedsimplistically, ignored completely (we’ve seen a lot more of Sarek than Amanda on screen), or fridged to give Spock and Sarek angst. Discovery is still guilty of focusing way more on Sarek’s role in raising Burnham than Amanda, but Amanda at least hasn’t been forgotten: from the mention of the copy of Alice in Wonderland that Amanda gave her back in “Context is for Kings” all the way to Burnham thanking her for reminding her how to be human in this episode.

The entire crew literally standing up to Cornwell when they find out the real plan is a crowning moment of awesome very much like when everyone came to Tyler’s table in the mess last week. And Burnham and Saru reaffirming what are supposed to be Starfleet core values is a joy to see.

What’s not a joy is that they had to reaffirm it in the first place. I was iffy on Georgiou being put in charge of Discovery at the end of last week, and it makes even less sense now. She’s just shoved in charge with no oversight, no guidance—if Cornwell had stayed on board to supervise, that would’ve been one thing. Then I could see using Georgiou as a symbol to galvanize the crew and the fleet. But to just leave her on her own? It’s a disaster, especially since Georgiou does more to prove Spock’s point in “Mirror, Mirror” right: it is much more difficult for a barbarian to pose as a civilized person than the other way ’round. She bites off the heads of both Detmer and Owokusen when they give reports, and she treats Saru with unconcealed disdain. (To Saru’s credit, he gives as good as he gets.)

The evil admiral trope is a tired one in Star Trek. We didn’t get much of it in the original series—admirals were also rarely seen, just occasionally giving an order or three—but it went into overdrive in the spinoffs, especially TNG. We’ve had admirals who collaborate with bad guys from Cardassians to Son’a, who start witch hunts on the Enterprise, who are in bed with Section 31, and so on. Now we can add Cornwell and the rest to the list. Sigh. Sarek, too, for that matter, whose half-assed apology for his role in implementing the plan to have Georgiou, not map the surface of Qo’noS with a drone, but rather blow up Qo’noS, is pathetic.

But why did anyone think this was a good idea? Or that it would even work? Why was the emperor of a despotic multisystem empire given free rein over the starship you’re counting on to win your war with a Hail Mary? And then, when Burnham talks sense into Cornwell (which was at once very convincing, because Cornwell’s actually been portrayed as sensible up until now, but also completely unconvincing because she’s a damned admiral, and a bunch of subordinates standing up on a ship shouldn’t convince her to do anything different), why do they just let Georgiou go? On what planet, in what star system, in what galaxy, in what friggin’ universe does that make anything like sense? (You realize, Georgiou will be running the Orion Syndicate inside a week, yeah?)

Tyler decides to leave, too, and I’m sorry, why does a prisoner get to make that decision and only tell the unranked specialist and the cadet about it? Tyler’s an asset that has already proven to be useful to Starfleet. His ass should be back on the ship and sent to Earth for the longest debrief ever. And how long is he going to last as L’Rell’s Wormtongue anyhow? The novelty of the waterskiing dog’ll wear off in a damn hurry.

Burnham coming full circle is decently done, but it feels contrived. It shouldn’t have been all Burnham, for one thing. Tilly’s the one who uncovered Georgiou’s plan, but at that point, Saru, as acting captain of the ship, should’ve been the one to confront Cornwell, not the disgraced specialist who’s forbidden from even having rank, and who’s also the idiot who brought Georgiou to this universe in the first place like a sentimental dumbass.

Having said that, I have no problem—given the actual events of the episode—that Burnham’s pardoned (I like that it’s a presidential pardon), her rank restored. And the solution itself was both very Federation and very Klingon. McCoy mentioned to Kirk in The Search for Spock after he blew up the Enterprise that he took defeat and turned it into an opportunity for victory, and Burnham does that here. Georgiou already dropped the bomb, so she gives it to L’Rell, and lets her use it.

That’s another thing I liked in the episode, by the way, that L’Rell—who has been content to remain behind the scenes aiding T’Kuvma, Kol, and Voq—finds herself in the position of power. She’s the one who reunites the Houses, and she does it with a Federation bomb. End the war and reunite or I’ll blow up the planet. This is not a permanent solution, of course, but it was never going to be, because we know that tensions between the Federation and the empire will escalate to another war in a decade’s time in “Errand of Mercy.”

(For those who wish to complain that a woman shouldn’t be able to control the sexist empire, keep in mind that, while Gowron said in the 24th century that women couldn’t serve on the High Council, we’ve already seen a female chancellor in the 23rd century in Azetbur. Nobody batted an eyelash at Azetbur in The Undiscovered Country, so obviously the law Gowron mentioned was implemented in the eight decades between the sixth movie and “Redemption.” Your humble reviewer’s theory has always been that Azetbur’s successor was hugely reactionary, and passed that law in an extreme response to Azetbur’s rule, probably with a slogan to make Qo’noS great again.)

And then, finally, because Discovery is never happier than when they’re giving us a gee-whiz ending, we get a distress call from Captain Pike and the U.S.S. Enterprise while they’re en route to Vulcan to pick up their new captain. (And why the hell isn’t Saru getting command??????) We don’t get to find out what this will actually mean until 2019, of course…

Now, unlike many who are fulminating about this online, I have no problem with the Big E getting the same update as everything else on Discovery. We are not Thermians watching historical documents, we’re watching interpretations of what we think the future will look like. I’ve seen Macbeth on stage dozens of times, and the set decoration was different every time. Nobody went on Facebook and complained that the production they saw in London had totally different costumes and sets than the one they saw in New York.

In the 1960s, we thought the future was going to look like what we saw on the original series, and in 2018, we now know they were wrong. (Pike’s crew brought reports via printout! Heck, even TNG‘s padds and interfaces look dated thirty years on.)

Having said that, why even open the can of worms? It’s yet another distraction giving people something extraneous to the story to complain about, and keeping the focus away from the actual stories you’re telling.

As always, Sonequa Martin-Green is amazing, even though she inexplicably gets to deliver a speech during the medal ceremony. (And yay, Tilly’s an ensign now!) She sells Burnham’s earnestness, her regret, her passion. In the end, she gets to do exactly what Lorca asked her to do, even though he was full of shit when he challenged her: she started the war, now she gets to help end it.

Later this week, I’ll be doing an overview of the whole season, and look for another overview of Discovery tie-in fiction later this month.

Keith R.A. DeCandido will be a guest at Planet Comic-Con in Kansas City this weekend. He’ll be at the Bard’s Tower table all weekend. Other guests include Discovery‘s Sonequa Martin-Green, fellow Trek scribes Melinda M. Snodgrass, Dayton Ward (author of the new Discovery novel Drastic Measures), Kevin Dilmore, Kevin J. Anderson, and Thomas Zahler, as well as fellow Bard’s Tower occupiers Jonathan Maberry, Quincy J. Allen, and Michelle Corsillo, plus a crapton of actors, writers, comics creators, and more.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2018/02/12/a-waterskiing-dog-star-trek-discoverys-will-you-take-my-hand/feed/219Making Will Eisner Dizzy in His Grave — Two Terrible Versions of The Spirithttps://www.tor.com/2018/02/09/making-will-eisner-dizzy-in-his-grave-two-terrible-versions-of-the-spirit/
https://www.tor.com/2018/02/09/making-will-eisner-dizzy-in-his-grave-two-terrible-versions-of-the-spirit/#commentsFri, 09 Feb 2018 16:00:33 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=335604While there are other people who qualify for the title, it isn’t hyperbole to say that Will Eisner is one of the greatest comic book artists in the history of the world. Co-founder of the Eisner-Iger Studio that produced a ton of comic strips and comic books in the 1930s, Eisner was hired in 1939 […]]]>

While there are other people who qualify for the title, it isn’t hyperbole to say that Will Eisner is one of the greatest comic book artists in the history of the world. Co-founder of the Eisner-Iger Studio that produced a ton of comic strips and comic books in the 1930s, Eisner was hired in 1939 by Quality Comics to create a sixteen-page Sunday supplement to the comic strips section that would tell full-on comic-book style stories. Eisner created a masked hero who fought crime nicknamed “the Spirit.” The Spirit quickly became hugely popular throughout the 1940s, and it ran in Sunday newspapers until 1952.

Lots of attempts were made to bring the Spirit to radio, film, and television, but only two actually made it to the screen, only one of which aired in Eisner’s lifetime: a pilot for a TV show in 1987 that wasn’t picked up, and a 2008 feature film.

The Spirit is a former Central City cop named Denny Colt, who is believed to be dead. Wearing a domino mask to disguise his identity, he continues to fight crime as the Spirit. Police Commissioner Dolan knows his real identity and works with the Spirit to fight the various criminals who torment Central City.

Eisner’s stories of urban crime and espionage combined with his groundbreaking work in panel design and atmospheric artwork to create an enduring set of stories that work as ground-level pulp and high art at the same time. The Spirit was dubbed by one critic as the world’s only middle-class hero, which was actually true at the time. Superman was a jet-setting journalist, Batman a wealthy socialite, Wonder Woman and Sub-Mariner were both royalty, the Human Torch was a robot, and Captain America was actually lower-class. The Spirit was just a regular Joe who fought crime with his brains and with his fists.

At a time when most comic book companies were mass-producing superhero and war material, and nobody was concerned with making art, Eisner stood out, as he pushed the envelope in terms of layout and design and atmosphere. He changed the way you could do sequential art, and has continued to influence virtually all comics that have been done since. (Not coincidentally, some of the finest artists in comics history came out of the Eisner-Iger studio, some of whom later worked with Eisner on The Spirit: Jack Kirby, who co-created most of Marvel’s iconic characters; Jules Feiffer, later to become one of the great political cartoonists; Wally Wood, a mainstay of Mad Magazine; Bob Kane, co-creator of Batman; and more.)

After several false starts, including negotiations for a movie serial in the 1940s that never went anywhere, and an animated movie directed by Brad Bird that never got out of development, CBS produced a pilot for a Spirit TV series in 1987 starring Sam Jones, best known for the title role in 1980’s Flash Gordon. It was adapted by Steven de Souza, probably best known as one of the writers of Die Hard, and would go on to adapt Judge Dredd for Sylvester Stallone. It didn’t go to series, and almost didn’t air, but urging from comics fans got it aired, at least, and it received a small home video release. Eisner himself was reportedly displeased with how the pilot came out.

In 2008, three years after Eisner’s death, Frank Miller—the comics creator who turned Daredevil into an A-list character, revitalized Batman, and who had had success collaborating with Robert Rodriguez on a live-action adaptation of his noir comic book series Sin City—got the rights to do a Spirit movie. Miller considered Eisner to be a father-figure and mentor, and saw this as a labor of love, which may come as a surprise to anyone who has both read the comics and seen the movie…

“Murder is never a laughing matter”

The SpiritWritten by Steven E. de Souza
Directed by Michael Schultz
Produced by Stu Samuels & Frank von Zerneck
Original release date: July 31, 1987

Denny Colt, a straight-arrow cop in Armfet, Oregon, drives to the house of his mentor and best friend, retired cop William Sevrin. Sevrin was working on a manuscript about the Roxton Museum in Central City. An unknown assailant broke into his house and burned it down, fatally clubbing Sevrin on the head and burning his manuscript. Sevrin’s dying words are that only two people knew about the book: Colt and Simon Teasdale, the curator of the Roxton, to whom Sevrin wrote a letter.

Teasdale is now at worst a suspect and at best a person of interest, so Colt goes to Central City. He finds Commissioner Dolan at a charity event hosted by his daughter Ellen and her best friend P’Gell Roxton. (On the way, Colt foils a purse snatching, and also catches a kid named Eubie who’s peddling hot tape players; since Eubie is peddling the tape decks to disadvantaged kids, Colt lets him go.)

Dolan tells Colt to make an appointment, as you don’t just haul in someone like Teasdale for questioning in a murder, but Colt refuses to wait and goes straight to the museum. Teasdale is not really interested in answering Colt’s questions, and also denies ever receiving a letter from Sevrin. In addition, he can’t imagine what Sevrin’s book could possibly be about, as the museum’s never been the subject of any criminal activity, not even vandalism.

One of the museum workers, a guy named Bruno, says he may know something that will help Colt, but he can’t talk about it there. He and Colt agree to meet at Pier 10—where Bruno shoots Colt.

While Colt’s badge is found near a bloodstain on the pier, no body is recovered. And Colt himself stumbles to a cemetery—where he bumps into Eubie and his dealer. The dealer runs away, but Eubie actually nurses Colt back to health in a sarcophagus. Colt decides to let the world believe he’s dead. He puts on a domino mask that somehow keeps everyone from recognizing him and he starts to fight crime in this city he’s only been in for less than a week.

Besides making this city that is not his home safer (crime is down 21% over the time he spends stopping jewel heists and muggings and such), he also tries to find out more about Roxton. He also introduces himself to Dolan, to whom he reveals that he’s really Colt. Since the Spirit, as he’s been nicknamed, has done some good, Dolan allows him to continue working. Ellen also meets him, but both the Spirit and Dolan refuse to reveal his true identity to her for no compellingly good reason.

Spirit figures that Roxton is counterfeiting artwork, and he learns that they’re doing the work in the museum basement. He breaks in through the women’s room just as Ellen enters. Spirit fears for her life, and he helps her escape through the window before either of them remember that she was there on official business (she’s the police force’s liaison to the mayor’s office) and she could’ve just walked out the front door.

Spirit discovers the counterfeiting operation, and fisticuffs ensue, but Spirit is bonked on the head by Bruno. He’s left in a deathtrap—being lowered into the acid bath they use to age the fake sculptures—but Ellen decides to check up on him, and manages to rescue him.

He still doesn’t have concrete evidence, so he sets a trap: disguising himself as a professor, he meets with Teasdale and P’Gell to discuss museum matters, and offhandedly mentions that he has a copy of Sevrin’s manuscript.

Bruno and two thugs follow Spirit to the graveyard, and more fisticuffs ensue. Unbeknownst to our heroes, however, Teasdale isn’t the bad guy—P’Gell is. The counterfeiting scheme is hers, and after Bruno once again knocks Spirit on the head, P’Gell ties him up in the basement of the museum. He refuses to say where the manuscript is, but in his unconscious stupor after Bruno hit him, he called Ellen’s name. So P’Gell kidnaps Ellen from the party being held for disadvantaged kids in the museum and threatens her life, at which point Spirit admits that there is no manuscript, he just used that to call her out.

Since there’s too much heat on her now, P’Gell plans to blow up the museum and cut her losses. Spirit manages to break out of his bonds and stop all the bombs, as well as having one final fistfight with Bruno, which takes him all the way to the giant dinosaur cake in the middle of the party.

P’Gell gets away, and Teasdale is using the publicity from this to raise the museum’s profile. Meanwhile, Spirit will continue to fight crime in this city that has nothing to do with him at all.

The Spirit gets a call from one of the Central City cops he trusts, Detective Sussman, saying a shady deal is going down. The Spirit goes, while providing an endless tough-guy voiceover about his city that sounds like a cross among Batman, Daredevil, and the Stephen Amell version of Green Arrow.

Sussman confronts a woman who rises, Lady-of-the-Lake-like, out of the water and holds a gun on him—but it’s the Octopus, a major criminal who controls most of Central City’s drug trade, who shoots Sussman. The woman, Sand Serif, dives back underwater and retrieves the two boxes she’s come to collect. The Octopus shoots at her and her partner/husband, hitting only him, then dives underwater and shoots some more, breaking the chain linking the two boxes. Serif gets away with one of them, while the Octopus claims the other.

The Spirit arrives just as Octopus resurfaces, and the two of them have a huge fight that involves a disturbing amount of diving into mud. Also at one point, the Octopus conks the Spirit on the head with a toilet, and if that isn’t a metaphor for this film, I don’t know what is!

After the Octopus makes some oblique remarks about how much alike they are, and how it’s significant that both of them heal quickly from injuries that would kill a normal person, he buggers off.

Sussman pulled a locket off of Serif, and he gives it to Spirit before he dies. Spirit recognizes it as belonging to Serif, who was his childhood sweetheart, back when he was just a kid named Denny Colt. Colt’s father was a drunk boxer who accidentally shot Serif’s father, a cop. Serif—who always wanted shiny things—was embittered by her father’s death, declared that she hated cops, and left Central City never to return—until now, anyhow—becoming a jewel thief.

Serif meets with her fence, who betrayed her to the Octopus. In her anger, Serif convinces the fence to kill himself.

Spirit gets fixed up by Dr. Ellen Dolan, and then they have a brief moment of smooching that’s interrupted by her father, Police Commissioner Dolan. Dolan introduces them to an enthusiastic rookie cop, Officer Morgenstern.

Dolan doesn’t care about the Octopus, he’s more concerned with Serif. Even though Dolan knows that Spirit is really Colt, Spirit lies and says he doesn’t know Serif. To Dolan’s credit, he doesn’t believe him.

Spirit, Dolan, and Morgenstern check out the crime scene of the fence’s murder, then Spirit goes off on his own, asking Morgenstern to let him know if there are any leads on the Octopus.

It turns out that what Serif really wanted was in the box that the Octopus got and what Octopus really wanted was in the box Serif has. Serif gets into a card game with one of the Octopus’s associates, and when she cleans him out, she asks that he pass on a message to the Octopus that she wants to meet.

Spirit guesses that Serif would be staying at the nicest hotel in town, and he finds her and the corpse of her latest husband there. The husband supposedly killed himself. For some inexplicable reason, Spirit doesn’t mention that he has her locket, and Serif—like everyone else—doesn’t realize that Colt and Spirit are one and the same even though they look and sound alike.

Morgenstern notices that the corpse of one of Octopus’s cloned henchmen had industrial salt on his boots. Spirit checks out the Feiffer Industrial Salt Company, and finds Octopus’s headquarters under it. However, his associate, Silken Floss, injects him with a sedative, and they tie him up.

The Octopus reveals that he created the Spirit. He created a fluid that allows one to heal quickly. Back when he was the coroner, he tested it on Officer Denny Colt after he was shot. Once he saw it worked, he injected it into himself. His next step is to obtain the blood of Heracles, which will make him immortal, which is what he needs from Serif. (Serif wants the Golden Fleece, which Octopus currently has.) He plans to kill the Spirit by slicing off bits of him and separating them far enough that he can’t regenerate.

However, Plaster of Paris, a woman in a bellydancer outfit whom Octopus wants to kill him, turns out to be an ex-fling of the Spirit’s, so she frees him out of love for him. Spirit beats the crap out of Octopus, and mentions Serif, which makes Paris jealous, so after she frees him, she impales him with her sword.

Spirit overheard where Serif and Octopus plan to make their exchange. Serif and Floss banter a bit—Serif tries to convince Floss to get away from Octopus, but Floss is having too much fun—and then Octopus appears. All hell breaks loose, as Dolan, Morgenstern, and the other cops open fire, as does Octopus, and Spirit appears, and it’s a big ol’ mess. When Octopus tries to drink Heracles’s blood, Serif shoots the vase. Spirit drops a grenade down Octopus’s shorts, and Serif uses the Fleece to protect herself and Spirit from the explosion. Because she saved his life, Spirit convinces Dolan to let Serif get away—and Serif also realizes that Spirit is her childhood sweetie. Spirit gives the locket back to her and she buggers off, while Spirit insists that he only loves Ellen, who doesn’t entirely buy it.

Meanwhile, Floss retrieves one of Octopus fingers, and figures she can start over with that.

“We was watchin’!”

(For the purposes of this review, I’m going to refer to the 1987 pilot as “the Jones film” and the 2008 movie as “the Macht film,” and “the Spirit” will simply refer to the main character. Cha cha cha.)

When the Macht film was released, I remember reading a comment on a friend’s blog that it would’ve been simpler if Frank Miller had simply dug up Eisner’s grave and pissed directly into his skull.

And he wasn’t far off. Back in 2008, Miller was quoted as saying this on Sci-Fi Wire: “Will Eisner was my mentor, and The Spirit was so awesome a property that I at first thought I was not worthy to do it.” All I can think is that he should’ve gone with his first instinct.

There are several problems here: the disjointed pacing, the too-dark lighting, the incoherent scripting, the mediocre acting from the lead… It’s just really poor, and not even poor in a good or fun way, just a sort-of stare-at-the-screen-and-go-“buh???” way.

We start with the visuals, which are just wrong. The stylized flat noir style that served Sin City so perfectly is an abject disaster when adapting The Spirit. For all the noir trappings of Eisner’s comics, the art was always fairly bright. Muting the colors doesn’t do the Macht movie any favors. (Neither did covering Spirit and Octopus in mud for most of the first half-hour. First time I saw this movie on DVD in late 2009, I almost stopped watching after the conking on the head with the toilet, which remains the perfect metaphor for this mess.)

Also, there’s no sense of whimsy here. Yes, Eisner wrote about a guy who cheated death and fought crime and engaged in lotsa violence, but it was always fun. Fun has never been Miller’s strong suit, and he wouldn’t know whimsy if it bit him on his behind.

There are good points: Sarah Paulson was born to play Ellen; Louis Lombardi is hilarious as multiple similarly named, not-too-bright, cloned thugs of the Octopus’s; and Stana Katic is marvelous as the eager-to-please Morgenstern, a Bizarro-world version of Castle’s Kate Beckett. Plus, Scarlett Johansson knocks it out of the park as Floss, as the Black Widow turns out to be a way more effective villain than Nick Fury.

This isn’t the worst use of Samuel L. Jackson—George Lucas’s utter inability to make Mace Windu interesting will always have that place of honor—but it’s right down there. Jackson’s at his best in two modes: utter, frightening calm (viz. Fury) or manic insanity (viz. Valentine in Kingsmen: Secret Service). Sometimes he does both (viz. Jules in Pulp Fiction). Miller manages to find a weird middle ground that’s too manic for Jackson’s calm mode but too calm for his manic mode.

Dan Lauria is perfect casting for Dolan, but his performance doesn’t work, mostly because he spends too much time yelling at the Spirit for being a skirt-chaser—something, by the way, that the original never was. Nor was he a brooding, violent, grimdark hero who waxes rhapsodic about his city. Overall, Macht is just a disaster in the role. To be fair, he has nothing to work with, since Miller has changed him from Eisner’s middle-class hero into—well, basically, every other Frank Miller protagonist ever.

Sam Jones, at least, looks and sounds like the Spirit. He’s got the blue suit and especially the physicality. Eisner always drew the Spirit as the biggest guy in the room, and Macht never comes across that way, but the 6’3″ Jones absolutely does.

Sadly, while Jones is a much better visual for the part, his movie is just as big a disaster. Where the Macht film is too dark, the Jones film is too bright. Just as Howard the Duck suffered from the transition from the 1970s to the 1980s, so too with The Spirit, which comes across as off-kilter four decades removed from its creation. (The Macht film is sufficiently stylized that this is less of a problem—the movie occupies a weird limbo with pop-bulb flashes and 1940s fashions, but also with cell phones and computers, but that, at least, actually works.)

Jones tries his best, at least, as does Nana Visitor as Ellen, who is saddled with dumb dialogue, dumber drooling over the Spirit, and the dumbest slapstick bit in all creation in the scene in the museum women’s room. Visitor gamely does the best she can, but she’s saddled with just a terrible characterization.

Visitor, Jones, and Daniel Davis as Teasdale are the only ones who are actually trying here. Davis does a wonderful job of making you think that Teasdale’s the bad guy. (Anyone who knows the comics knows it’s a fakeout, as P’Gell is a recurring antagonist in the comics, but the double-reverse on the bad guy mostly works anyhow.) Everybody else is wretched, from Garry Walberg’s bloodless Dolan to McKinlay Robinson’s dreadful P’Gell to Bumper Robinson, who is just as awful as the pre-teen Eubie (a poor attempt to redo the comics’ Ebony White, a black character who has aged really really badly) as he will be as a teenager in Generation X in the following decade.

Both movies suffer from an inability to get the source material. The Jones film just glosses over the surface of the events of the comics, but doesn’t really commit to it beyond Jones uttering the lamest of clichés. Both movies have some spectacularly wretched dialogue, both make changes to the source material that make the story significantly worse. The Jones film has Colt be from another city, which makes his becoming a vigilante out to save Central City nonsensical. (Also the running joke where people misread his badge as being from “Armpit” rather than “Armfet” went on a bit too long.) And the Macht film turns the square-jawed hero of Eisner’s comics who was mostly befuddled by women into a skirt-chasing asshole who monologues broodingly. Plus we actually see the Octopus—he was always off-panel in the comics—and he spends the whole movie cosplaying: as a weird cowboy, a samurai, a Nazi, and a 70s pimp. And why does he have such an obsession with eggs, exactly?

The Jones film, at least, is paced rather briskly, and events move sensibly, plus it has the Spirit’s signature ripping of his suit on a regular basis (yet the mask is never out of place). The Macht film is all over the place, disjointed and difficult to watch, while his clothes are barely rumpled, much less torn (though Paris cuts his tie off at one point). Both of them are disastrous adaptations of one of the finest examples of comic art of the 20th century, and neither deserves to be how Eisner’s most famous creation is remembered. With luck, the Macht film will fall into the same obscure dustbin that the Jones film did—ironically, the imminent release of the Macht film a decade ago brought the Jones film back to prominence from the bootleg-VHS peanut gallery it had been consigned to.

Next week, we look at the opening act of Marvel’s movie renaissance, the Blade trilogy starring Wesley Snipes.

Keith R.A. DeCandido will be an author and musical guest at Farpoint 25 in Cockeysville, Maryland this weekend, alongside The Spirit co-star Nana Visitor and Generation X co-star Matt Frewer, as well as fellow authors Timothy Zahn, Peter David, Robert Greenberger, David Mack, Marc Okrand, Aaron Rosenberg, Howard Weinstein, and tons and tons more. Check out his schedule here.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2018/02/09/making-will-eisner-dizzy-in-his-grave-two-terrible-versions-of-the-spirit/feed/36Moving Forward — Star Trek Discovery’s “The War Without, the War Within”https://www.tor.com/2018/02/05/star-trek-discovery-the-war-without-the-war-within/
https://www.tor.com/2018/02/05/star-trek-discovery-the-war-without-the-war-within/#commentsMon, 05 Feb 2018 17:50:28 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=334545One of the constant complaints about Discovery that I have seen online is that it isn’t “real” Star Trek. We’ve been down this road before, of course. In 1979, people wrote letters to magazines about how they had “Star Wars“-ified Star Trek and how this couldn’t be the same universe as the beloved TV show. […]]]>

One of the constant complaints about Discovery that I have seen online is that it isn’t “real” Star Trek. We’ve been down this road before, of course. In 1979, people wrote letters to magazines about how they had “Star Wars“-ified Star Trek and how this couldn’t be the same universe as the beloved TV show. Gene Roddenberry spent much of 1982 telling fans to boycott The Wrath of Khan because it wasn’t “real” Star Trek and it violated his vision. Fans howled in 1987 at the notion of a Star Trek TV show that didn’t have Kirk, Spock, and McCoy and how it would never work and it wasn’t “real” Star Trek, and then again in 1993 at the notion of a Star Trek TV show that wasn’t on a starship. And many of the complaints levied against Discovery now were also levied against Enterprise seventeen-and-a-half years ago.

To all those people, I say this: watch “The War Without, the War Within,” and if you don’t think this is real Star Trek, then your definition of real Star Trek is radically different from mine. (Please note that this is independent of whether or not you think the episode is any good.) Because everything that makes Trek special is on display here: hope, forgiveness, acceptance, finding a solution to a problem rather than giving up, love, compassion.

I had only two real disappointments with the episode. One was that the I.S.S. Discovery was apparently destroyed by Klingons very soon after arriving in the mainline universe. Rest in peace, Captain Killy.

We find that out from Cornwell and Sarek, who board the ship in a hostile manner. The former asks the latter to engage in a forced mind-meld with Saru to find out where this doppelgänger came from—and it turns out that they’re the real one. While I appreciate the use of a mind-meld to move the story along, this is a pretty appalling violation. I mean, yeah, there’s a war on, and yeah, they think this is some kind of weird imposter or something, but still. (Then again, like father, like son…)

Cornwell immediately classifies the concept of the Mirror Universe, which explains both why Kirk and Co. knew nothing about it in “Mirror, Mirror,” but also why the notion of parallel universes wasn’t completely unfamiliar to them in the episode, either. (The computer knew all about the notion and they were talking about field densities between universes in the TOS episode, so the general concept was obviously known, just not the specifics of the MU.)

The Discovery has several issues to deal with. Tyler is recovering from his experiences, trying to figure out who he is—he has Voq’s memories, but no longer his personality, and he’s having a major identity crisis. Emperor Georgiou is confined to guest quarters and nobody’s quite sure what to do with her. The Klingons are winning the war—but they’re not a unified front. All the major Houses are running their own offensives, so the Federation isn’t so much losing one war as it’s losing twenty-four simultaneous wars. Cornwell shares this with L’Rell in a wonderful conversation between two enemies who actually have respect for each other after what they went through as Kol’sprisoners. L’Rell parrots a line Worf had in “The Way of the Warrior,” that in war, victory is always honorable, and also answers Cornwell’s plaintive query as to how the war ends with a very blunt, “It doesn’t.”

Saru’s line from last week about this isn’t Lorca’s ship, it’s theirs is perfectly exemplified by the mess hall scene. First off, prior to that, Saru tells Tyler that he won’t put him in the brig. He isn’t an officer anymore, and his movements are now restricted, but Voq is responsible for the horrible things he did, and Saru won’t imprison Tyler for Voq’s crimes. And then Tyler goes to the mess hall. On Lorca’s ship, Burnham was a pariah, treated with utter disdain; on Saru’s ship, Tilly gets up and sits with Tyler. When Tyler tries to give her an out, saying she doesn’t have to do that, a) Tilly doesn’t move and instead says encouraging things (without belittling what he’s been through), and b) Detmer and several other crew members follow Tilly to the table to join him for lunch. It was an absolutely beautiful moment, putting a stake through the heart of a ship run by a guy who leaves people behind, enslaves sentient beings, and was just generally a shit, and instead making it recognizably a Starfleet ship again.

James Frain hasn’t always been a perfect Sarek, but holy cow, was he channeling Mark Lenard in this episode, most especially in his my-kid’s-better-than-your-kid scene with Georgiou. The conversation between the two of them is one of several beautifully written two-person dialogues in this episode, starting with Saru and Tyler, continuing to Tyler and Stamets (the former apologizing to the latter for killing his boyfriend, and the latter showing an interesting mix of the old snotty Stamets and the hippy-dippy Stamets, all without actually accepting the apology), Saru and Burnham, Tilly and Burnham, Burnham and Tyler (and brava to Burnham for not giving in to Tyler’s attempt to guilt her into helping him, as if his trauma was somehow more important than hers), and, as stated above, Cornwell and L’Rell.

Meanwhile, we have our movement toward the endgame of the war with the Klingons. Stamets figures out a way to grow new spores super-duper-fast (with a nice callback to Straal, Stamets’s counterpart on the Glenn from “Context is for Kings“), and Georgiou provides intelligence to Burnham about Qo’noS that the Federation doesn’t have. (Georgiou conquered the Klingon Empire; nobody from the Federation has set foot on the Klingon homeworld since Archer, another nice callback to “Broken Bow” and “Judgment.”) The plan is to use the spore drive to appear in one of the large caverns beneath the surface of Qo’noS, then map it so that Starfleet can engage in a surgical strike on the planet.

At the end we have a third disappointment—Sarek and Cornwell have made a deal with Georgiou for further intel on Qo’noS, in exchange for which Cornwell will allow Georgiou to pose as her mainline counterpart, miraculously rescued from the sarcophagus ship. My disappointment is not so much with the action—which is questionable to say the least, but justifiable from Cornwell’s perspective—but the fact that Saru and Burnham were surprised by it when Cornwell brought Georgiou onto the bridge. It makes no sense, none, that Saru and Burnham would not have been briefed on this ahead of time, if for no other reason than to minimize the risk of either of them blowing Georgiou’s cover.

This is an excellent episode on its own, one that moves several of the characters forward—Tyler’s identity crisis, the war effort, Georgiou’s attempt to assimilate into the new universe, and Burnham’s multifaceted problems—and sets everything up nicely for the finale next week. In particular all of Burnham’s issues are brought to light here. She’s completely forthright with Saru as to why she rescued Georgiou, and it’s to Saru’s credit that he doesn’t really give her a pass for it, but doesn’t really ding her for it, either. Tilly spells out to Burnham the lesson of the MU in facing your own darkness. Then Burnham manages to help Tyler by giving him brutally honest advice on how to get through trauma—in particular that it’s solitary—without forcing herself to still be in any way involved with the person who tried to strangle her a couple episodes ago. Even with all that, though, she’s still doing what Lorca challenged her to do when she first came on board in “Context is for Kings,” for all that Lorca had a completely different agenda: stopping the war. So she mines Georgiou for information, trying to find a way to end the war.

This is definitely real Star Trek. You may not like it—and it’s not perfect, by any means, and I’m not blind to its many flaws—and you may not enjoy it, but it’s definitely Star Trek. And from the looks of the trailer to next week, those ideals will continue to be challenged, but our main character will be the one who stands by them, and you just know that Saru and Tilly, at the very least, will be right behind her.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2018/02/05/star-trek-discovery-the-war-without-the-war-within/feed/125More Team-Down than Team-Up — Generation X and Justice League of Americahttps://www.tor.com/2018/02/02/more-team-down-than-team-up-generation-x-and-justice-league-of-america/
https://www.tor.com/2018/02/02/more-team-down-than-team-up-generation-x-and-justice-league-of-america/#commentsFri, 02 Feb 2018 17:00:23 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=333923DC Comics rebooted and/or revitalized many of their superheroes throughout the late 1950s, and when that had proven successful, Julius Schwartz and Gardner Fox then provided a new version of the Justice Society of America, now called the Justice League of America, in 1960, which brought all those heroes together in a single team book. […]]]>

DC Comics rebooted and/or revitalized many of their superheroes throughout the late 1950s, and when that had proven successful, Julius Schwartz and Gardner Fox then provided a new version of the Justice Society of America, now called the Justice League of America, in 1960, which brought all those heroes together in a single team book.

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the X-Men in 1963 to serve two needs: provide an easy out for origin stories by creating mutants—people born with powers—and also do a school for superheroes where they learn about their powers in an academic environment.

Over the years, both the Justice League and the X-Men went through numerous permutations—and also subsidiary teams. In the latter case, in 1982 Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod created a new team of mutant students. The X-Men at that point had moved far past the school notion, so the New Mutants were created. In 1994, Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo created Generation X, which was also a team of mutants learning how to control their powers.

Both teams had TV movies intended as series pilots aired in the 1990s, though Justice League of America never actually aired. Neither went to series.

Looking back in cynicism, it seems as if Generation X was only created with a new name so that Lobdell and Bachalo could get credit as creators. The concept was exactly the same as New Mutants, the only difference being that they were at the Massachusetts Academy instead of the Xavier Institute—and the MassAc was established as a rival school to Xavier’s way back in New Mutants.

In any case, GenX was created at a time when the X-books were going strong. With the New Mutants having mutated (ahem) into X-Force, a new book focusing on teens learning how to handle their powers was created as part of the “Phalanx Covenant” multibook storyline, one of the near-infinite numbers of multibook storylines the X-books did in the 1990s. Then the Generation X comic ran until 2001, and was recently resurrected (ahem) as part of the ResurrXion storyline.

Marvel also spent the ’90s trying to get their comics adapted for the screen. We dealt with two particularly impressive failures last week, and this go-round on television didn’t do any better, as it suffered poor ratings and poorer reviews and didn’t go to series.

The Justice League has gone through many iterations over the decades. While initially a team-up of DC’s most popular heroes, the roster constantly changed and evolved and shifted. During the 1980s, following the Legends miniseries, a new Justice League series was started, written by Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis, with art by Kevin Maguire. The book was light-hearted to say the least, and quickly became more so as readers responded to the silliness.

Giffen & DeMatteis left the book in 1992, but its popularity lived on. They returned to the League with the 2003 miniseries Formerly Known as the Justice League.

The 1997 TV pilot, which never aired in the U.S. (though it inexplicably got airings in various foreign markets), was inspired by the Giffen/DeMatteis roster (the Guy Gardner version of Green Lantern, Fire and Ice, the Martian Manhunter), at least in part because the rights to those characters were more readily available than the heavy hitters at DC (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman). They also went for a more comic tone, akin to that era of the comic book, and also inspired by popular contemporary sitcoms like Friends and Seinfeld.

“For an over-sexed mind witch, you really are a tightass”

Generation X

Written by Eric Blakeney
Directed by Jack Sholder
Produced by Bruce Sallan & Eric Blakeney
Original release date: February 20, 1996

Emma Frost and Russell Tresh are scientists who are part of a government project that is trying to access the dream dimension—it’s the dimension where the mind goes when it dreams. Mutants have better ability to access the dream dimension, and Tresh decides to experiment on a live mutant by removing living brain fluid. Frost stops him, but in the end the mutant test subject is arrested for being unregistered and is sent to Mutant Camp. Tresh is not arrested, but is fired. Outraged that the victim has been arrested while the perpetrator goes free, Frost—a powerful telepathic mutant—quits as well.

Five years later, Tresh has partnered with a businessman named Bobby Raltson. Tresh has pioneered a method of subliminal advertising that has made both Tresh and Ralston a great deal of money in several industries, including videogames. Tresh, though, wants to actually enter people’s dreams and plant suggestions into their minds that they can’t resist. Ralston is dubious about this, and urges Tresh to stick with the subliminal stuff when they plead with the board for more funding, as the board won’t go for the whole out-there dream-dimension stuff.

A teenager named Jubilation Lee is playing a videogame when her mutant powers are set off. She can shoot fireworks from her fingertips. She’s arrested, and her parents are told she’s going to be sent to Mutant Camp.

Frost shows up along with Sean Cassidy, also a mutant who has a sonic scream. They run Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, a school for mutants, and they recruit “Jubilee” for their school as a better alternative to Mutant Camp. They drive Jubilee back to the school, along with Angelo Espinoza, a mutant whose skin can stretch, which gets him the nickname “Skin.”

They arrive at Xavier’s and meet the other four students: Kurt Pastorious, a.k.a “Refrax,” whose eyes emit radiation, including X-rays and heat beams; “Mondo,” who can make his skin be the consistency of anything he touches; Arlee Hicks, a.k.a. “Buff,” who is super-strong and muscular (her self-consciousness about the latter leads to her wearing bulky clothes all the time); and Monet St. Croix, who is brilliant, strong, and invulnerable—and also with a serious attitude problem.

Frost and Cassidy teach them regular school classes, as well as training in the school’s security system, and in how to access their dreams. (At no point do we ever see them being trained in how to actually use their powers.)

They go into town and have a bonding afternoon of shopping and such. Skin is attracted to a blonde girl named Kayla, and he follows her around kinda creepily. Kayla’s friends decide to haze him a bit, shoving his face into a banana split.

Tresh ignores Ralston’s advice and presents his dream-entering tech to the board. To demonstrate its efficacy, the night before, he entered all their dreams and ordered them to have gastric distress at ten o’clock the next morning. Sure enough, when the clock strikes ten, they all fart.

Perhaps not surprisingly, this doesn’t make the board eager to embrace this technology, which crosses the line into mind control. Ralston is tasked with dealing with Tresh, but Tresh beats him to the punch by invading his dream and getting him to commit suicide.

When playing around with the security computer, Skin discovers the dream machine that Frost and Tresh had been working on for the government, which Frost keeps locked in the basement. He and Jubilee decide to use it, and both of them are visited in their dreams by Tresh. (Tresh recognizes Jubilee from the arcade where she was arrested—he’d been checking on the subliminal ads in the video games—and Jubilee recognizes him from the subliminal message, which mutants can see overtly.) Jubilee is creeped out by Tresh, but Skin doesn’t think he’s that bad, especially when Tresh offers to help him talk to Kayla through her dreams, which is totally creepy.

The cops find Tresh in his dream machine while investigating Ralston’s death, and they remove him from it forcibly, which almost casts Tresh’s mind into the abyss, but Skin is able to use his stretchy abilities to grab Tresh’s dream self and pull him back. While that saves Tresh’s mind from being destroyed, he can’t actually get back into his body, so he’s trapped in the dream dimension while his comatose body is in a medium-security hospital.

The kids go to a carnival. Skin and Kayla find each other and hang out, while Refrax hits on Buff. Both couples are screwed over, the former by Kayla’s friends starting a brawl, the latter by Refrax’s powers kicking in unexpectedly and allowing him to see through Buff’s clothes, which freaks him out.

Frost and Cassidy get the kids out of jail after the brawl, and Frost decides to expel Skin for starting the fight. But all the other kids show solidarity with him, and Cassidy gets Frost to back off the expulsion, instead just grounding them for a month. (Frost and Cassidy have a heart-to-heart, where we learn that Frost had a previous group of students known as the Hellions, who all died.)

Skin uses the dream machine to see Kayla in her dreams, since being grounded keeps him from seeing her in reality. Then Tresh shows up in his dream and asks him to free his body by bringing the dream machine to the hospital. Skin reluctantly does so, and then Tresh kidnaps him, intending to finish the experiment he started five years earlier.

Tresh hooks Skin up to the dream machine to try to harvest his mutant ability to access the dream dimension, but Skin is able to get a message through to a dreaming Jubilee. She gathers the team, and Frost and Cassidy lead them to attack Tresh.

Frost is able to send them all to the dream dimension, but in order to do so in such a way that Tresh doesn’t realize it, she needs all her focus, so she won’t be able to help the kids in any other way. Cassidy and the rest of the team attack Tresh, who rebuffs their attacks with remarkable ease given his lack of super-powers. However, he then seems to gain powers. Frost creates a doorway out for the others, and she is ready to sacrifice herself by tossing herself and Tresh into the abyss to destroy both their minds. However, Skin beats her to it, wrapping his arms around Tresh (multiple times) and diving into the abyss.

The others are devastated, thinking they lost him, but then he uses a stretchy arm to pull himself back. Refrax apologizes to Buff for freaking out, and Frost and Cassidy show off the new uniforms they’ll be wearing—starting with Buff, who actually wears her skintight outfit, showing off her musculature. Meanwhile, Tresh is back in a coma, back in the hospital.

“Software salesmen don’t have emergencies, Guy”

Justice League of America

Written by Lorne Cameron & David Hoselton
Directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá
Produced by Larry Rapaport
Never officially released

A terrorist who calls himself the Weatherman has a weather manipulator, and is using it to blackmail the city of New Metro. The Eno Meteorological Institute is tracking the hurricane, and we meet three people there: Dr. Eno, who runs the joint, as well as two of his meteorologists, Tora Olafsdottir and Arliss Hopke. Hopke keeps trying and failing to get Eno to look at a new project of his, while Olafsdottir simply gets tongue-tied around the boss.

With the hurricane hitting, the first one in New Metro history, the Justice League of America moves into action. Professor Ray Palmer cuts his science class short, B.B. DaCosta has to walk out of an audition, Guy Gardner interrupts a date—itself a make-good for a previously interrupted date—and Barry Allen leaves in the midst of getting evicted from his apartment. They change into, respectively, the Atom, Fire, Green Lantern, and the Flash. While the first three save several people (and also one cat), the Flash uses his super-speed to dissipate the hurricane.

As they change back into civvies, Allen says he’s lost his job and been evicted. Palmer and Gardner reluctantly let him move in with them. DaCosta returns to the audition, but it’s over—however the kid who cleans the place, Martin, hits on her, despite still not being of drinking age. DaCosta tries to let him down easy.

Olafsdottir is working late one night when she stumbles across a weird device that she accidentally spills liquid onto. It sparks and covers her in smoke, and then after that, she finds herself able to freeze anything. (She somewhat accidentally saves someone from drowning while walking home.)

The Justice League kidnaps Olafsdottir from her home but do not reveal themselves. Their leader, J’onn J’onzz, is soon satisfied that she is not the Weatherman and they return her to her bed where she’s convinced it was all a bad dream.

J’onzz is a shape-changer, and he poses as Eno in order to query Olafsdottir about who she thinks might be suspicious in the company. She mentions Hopke, but the League checks Hopke out, and it turns out that he’s simply created a better weather forecaster.

The Weatherman attacks the city with a hailstorm, and once again the League saves the day, though it interrupts another one of Gardner’s dates with Sheila, and she’s pretty much fed up with him. Green Lantern is able to save Sheila from the hailstorm, and she wonders why she can’t meet a guy like GL instead of Gardner, apparently unable to recognize Gardner even though he’s only wearing a domino mask.

Eno is hosting a reception for a senator in the hopes of getting new government funding. Unfortunately, the senator doesn’t make it, though his aide promises to let the senator know what a good party he missed.

The League infiltrates the party. Palmer breaks into an office and checks out the computer files to see what it was that Olafsdottir found that gave her her powers. Gardner is distracted by Sheila being at the party with another man and so he stops guarding the door, thus allowing Olafsdottir—who had been sorta-kinda flirting with Palmer earlier—to catch him. However, she sees that there’s a weather manipulator on the premises that can do everything the Weatherman has done to the city.

Martin continues his pursuit of DaCosta by calling her agent in the guise of a French filmmaker who will cast her in his movie in a few months when he returns from “the continent,” which makes her agent more friendly to her. He also gives her a pair of earrings he got in France that he was saving for someone special.

Olafsdottir sees the Weatherman make another announcement, and she tracks his signal to the roof of the Institute. There she finds Eno talking into a video camera. He’s the Weatherman! She escapes from his clutches by freezing a door.

The League is summoned to stop the Weatherman’s latest attack: a mudslide. Fire is able to stop it, and then she’s interviewed on TV. Martin sees the interview, and that Fire is wearing the earrings he gave DaCosta.

Olafsdottir tracks Palmer down, and he admits that he works for law-enforcement (which he kinda does?), and he promises to do something about Eno. Later, the League in costume bring her to their secret underwater lair, where she more formally meets J’onzz. He explains that he is a refugee from Mars, where his people don’t have the freedoms Americans take for granted. He fights for those freedoms by finding people with super-powers and training them. She says she’ll consider membership.

J’onzz has to disguise himself as Fire and meet Martin alongside DaCosta so the boy will believe that they’re different people, and that DaCosta just lent Fire the earrings. DaCosta gives the earrings back as Martin realizes that she’s not his one true love. (For starters, she just lied to him.) As she and J’onzz leave, the Martian asks, “Don’t your thighs chafe?”

Eno goes to Olafsdottir’s home to convince her that he’s not that bad. She freezes him and takes his weather manipulator. She brings it to JLA HQ, but it turns out that it’s a tracking device that the Weatherman uses to hit the HQ with a laser. The team escapes—except for J’onzz, who insists he can survive the high temperatures—and go after the Weatherman, who is now threatening New Metro with a tidal wave.

Green Lantern fights Eno, but the Weatherman tosses the weather manipulator over a cliff, so they can’t stop the tidal wave with that (though GL does lasso Eno). While Flash, Fire, and the Atom try to save as many people as possible, Olafsdottir manages to freeze the tidal wave.

Eno is arrested, and the four heroes convince Olafsdottir to join the team. DaCosta has even made her a costume, and suggests the codename Ice. She agrees, and also agrees to a lunch date with Palmer, while Allen heads out for his new job as a counselor at a halfway house, Gardner has another date with Sheila, and DaCosta goes off for an audition.

“None of us gifted kids get along”

On the face of it, one of the biggest problems with both these movies is their budget, or rather lack of same. When you’re portraying people with super-powers, those powers need to be at least a little bit convincing.

Both Generation X and Justice League of America fail utterly in this regard. They leaned into the issue, for the most part—super-speed is fairly easy to show (and had already been done seven years earlier on the Flash TV series), as are things like Frost’s telepathy, Monet’s super-strength, and Fire and Ice’s abilities to burn and freeze things. Generation X took it a step further by altering two comics characters—Husk, whose skin shed to reveal a tougher epidermis, and Chamber, whose powers blew a hole in his body from the jaw to the stomach—to the more low-budget-friendly Buff (simply super-muscular) and Refrax (simply with vision powers mostly hid behind sunglasses).

But Skin’s stretching doesn’t look any less absurd than Reed Richards’s did in Fantastic Four, Green Lantern’s ring provides only the doofiest of shapes and forms, and both Cassidy’s sonic scream and Atom’s shrinking look patently absurd.

Worst of all, though, is poor David Ogden Stiers slathered in horrendous green makeup and being forced to wear what has always been one of the doofier costumes in comic-dom. They keep Stiers off-camera as much as possible, which is good, as vocally, he’s perfect for the role. Every time J’onzz has been portrayed on screen, he’s been given an actor with a noble, regal voice, from Stiers to Carl Lumbly to Phil Morris to Dorian Harewood to the current version, David Harewood on Supergirl. But physically, the role is a disaster, made worse by the costume accentuating poor Stiers’s huge belly.

The other heroes in JLA don’t fare much better in the costume department. Green Lantern’s outfit is actually okay, but the Atom and Flash and Fire look like kids in bad Hallowe’en costumes (Fire especially), and Atom’s in particular make poor John Kassir look like he weighs three hundred pounds. (Again, there was a Flash TV show just a few years earlier—couldn’t they have taken more of a cue from the outfit John Wesley Shipp wore?)

GenX avoids that problem until the very end when Buff shows up in a very 90s-style X-costume. The characters are otherwise all in street clothes—the only ones who match their comic-book outfits are Frost and Jubilee. The former wears the same white bustiers that the comics character has always favored, while Jubilee is often in her signature yellow raincoat.

Jubilee is also played by the very-much-not-Asian Heather McComb. The whitewashing of Jubilee was one of the loudest complaints about GenX when it first aired 22 years ago, and it’s 100% deserved. It’s not like there’s a plethora of Asian heroes in the first place, so altering one of the few is pretty crummy. (For that matter, while I think it’s cute that they hired the same actor to play Cassidy who voiced him in the 1990s X-Men cartoon, Jeremy Ratchford’s awful fake Irish accent sounds even worse in live-action, and turns him into a caricature.)

At least GenX spending a lot of time with the characters in their off-time bonding and acting like teenagers is baked into the premise, and provides a handy way to do character development without having to pay for F/X scenes. (And hey, look, it’s a very young Kavan Smith as one of the townies who bothers the kids!) But what the heck were they thinking turning the Justice League into a GenX (ahem) sitcom?

Seriously, the characters are all mangled to fit this odd mode. Green Lantern is a weird combination of Hal Jordan (looks), Kyle Rayner (costume), and Guy Gardner (name), yet doesn’t actually match any iteration of GL, since he’s a software salesman, making you wonder how, exactly, he contrived to get his hands on the ring. (It’s supposed to go to someone who knows no fear; Jordan was a test pilot, John Stewart a Marine, Gardner a football player and teacher. Maybe, like Rayner, he got it by accident…) Atom is inexplicably changed from a renowned scientist to a high-school science teacher, Fire is an aspiring actor, losing the comics character’s espionage background (and the fact that she’s a native of Brazil), and Allen is an unemployed loser instead of a crime-scene investigator. And they spend a tiresome amount of time on personal problems (Allen’s inability to find a career, Gardner’s girlfriend issues, etc.) than they do actually superheroing. And when they do suit up and act heroic, we see very little of it and it’s very badly done. (Seriously, the best GL can do against a normal guy standing on a catwalk is threaten him with a chainsaw? That’s it?)

One of the biggest problems with live-action superheroes is that they often make the notion of disguising yourself with a mask to be ridiculous. It’s particularly ridiculous when a person who knows the civilian ID well meets the superhero. It doesn’t help that, with very rare exceptions (Christopher Reeve being the gold standard; Rex Smith also), the actors rarely do anything to differentiate between the two identities in terms of voice or body language. Watching JLA, I simply do not believe that Sheila didn’t recognize Gardner when GL rescued her. Or, for that matter, that anybody who’d met DaCosta didn’t instantly realize she was Fire. Adding to the absurdity is that the movie is interspersed with television interviews with the members of the League, but they’re all in civvies when they’re interviewed! They’re blithely talking about their superheroic lives on camera, yet they move heaven and Earth to keep their girlfriends and stalkers from finding out that they’re also superheroes. (And yes, Martin’s a stalker. Possibly forgivable because he’s only a kid, but damn. Of course, Skin’s even worse in GenX, though there at least his creepy pursuit of Kayla gets him trouble twice over, both with the townies and with Tresh.)

JLA does give us the always-excellent Miguel Ferrer as the Weatherman. Ferrer is never not wonderful, and I love his confident smirking through that very lamely done final confrontation with GL. GenX is not so fortunate.

Okay, I am abject in my love for Matt Frewer, a love that goes back to the 1980s when he rocketed to prominence in Max Headroom. While he was best known for playing the loony title character, a computer-generated verbal scat artist, Frewer also played the male lead, Edison Carter, and did so quite well. Those two roles encapsulated the best and worst of Frewer’s career going forward, though. When he’s simply allowed to act, he’s superb, from his award-winning turn as a serial killer on DaVinci’s Inquest to his sleazy sinister role as a corrupt cop in Intelligence to his recurring role on Orphan Black as Dr. Leekie. When asked to be over the top and loopy, à la Headroom, it almost always ends badly. Either he’s so absurd as to be pathetic (see his awful Sherlock Holmes in several TV movies) or doing either a second-rate Robin Williams or a second-rate Jim Carrey.

It’s that last that he’s doing as Tresh, as you feel like they wanted Carrey for the role but couldn’t actually afford him, so they asked Frewer to impersonate him. It’s a terrible impersonation, and a terrible performance. All nuance is gone, and it’s impossible to take Tresh seriously.

The movie also is just confusing in terms of world-building. The kids are trained at the Xavier School, but there’s no mention of Charles Xavier or the X-Men (beyond sighting an X-Men video game in the arcade where Jubilee’s powers are outed, which is cute). Why not just have it be at the Massachusetts Academy and avoid the baggage associated with the Xavier name? There’s a Mutant Registration Act and unregistered mutants are sent to camp (as explained by a cop played by Garry Chalk, whom we just saw in Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.), but we get very little context for the history here. And there’s an inexplicable obsession with the dream dimension, which is more Doctor Strange than X-books.

Frewer’s goofiness, Ratchford’s comedy accent, Jubilee’s whitewashing, and the simply dreadful acting by Bumper Robinson and Randall Slavin as Mondo and Refrax undermine the actually-very-good work done by Finola Hughes as Frost (despite the aggressive fakeness of the blonde wig on the brunette Hughes), Amarilis as Monet, and Suzanne Davis as Buff. Between that and the plot silliness, GenX just doesn’t work.

And JLA isn’t any better, as these look more like DC cosplayers than they do the superheroes whose names they insist on using.

Next week, we’ll look at two attempts to bring Will Eisner’s The Spirit to the screen, the first another failed TV pilot, the other the first and last movie solely directed by Frank Miller.

Keith R.A. DeCandido has had a Patreon for two months now, and in that time has provided the following for patrons: two movie reviews (Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Proud Mary), nine TV reviews (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., MacGyver, The Librarians, Doctor Who, Major Crimes, Feed the Beast, Breakout Kings, The Alienist, and Black Lightning), weekly excerpts from my work-in-progress, first-draft chapters of that work-in progress (in both cases, my upcoming urban fantasy novel A Furnace Sealed), two exclusive vignettes featuring, respectively, my original characters Cassie Zukav and the Super City Police Department, and lots and lots of cat pictures! So sign up!

]]>https://www.tor.com/2018/02/02/more-team-down-than-team-up-generation-x-and-justice-league-of-america/feed/35“We will not accept a no-win scenario” — Star Trek Discovery’s “What’s Past is Prologue”https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/we-will-not-accept-a-no-win-scenario-star-trek-discoverys-the-past-is-prologue/
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/we-will-not-accept-a-no-win-scenario-star-trek-discoverys-the-past-is-prologue/#commentsMon, 29 Jan 2018 18:00:56 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=332771My introduction to Michelle Yeoh was when Jackie Chan’s third Police Story movie was released in the United States in 1996, retitled Supercop. It was released here to cash in on Chan’s newfound American popularity following Rumble in the Bronx. I went to see the movie for Chan, but was completely captivated by Yeoh, who […]]]>

My introduction to Michelle Yeoh was when Jackie Chan’s third Police Story movie was released in the United States in 1996, retitled Supercop. It was released here to cash in on Chan’s newfound American popularity following Rumble in the Bronx. I went to see the movie for Chan, but was completely captivated by Yeoh, who was as good as Chan as a choreographed fighter and as an actor. In fact, she was a better actor, and Chan’s actually quite good…

I’ve followed her career with assiduity ever since, from her amazing turn in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to her being the primary reason why Tomorrow Never Dies is the only Pierce Brosnan James Bond movie I like. Her movements are elegant and beautiful, and ones I’ve grown to appreciate more the last thirteen years since I started training in martial arts.

So I freely admit that my second-favorite moment in “What’s Past is Prologue” is when Lorca throws a knife at Georgiou, and she uses an inside roundhouse kick to knock it aside. I totally cheered.

My favorite moment was, for the third episode in a row, a scene involving Saru. The speech he gives to the crew about how the ship isn’t Lorca’s anymore is wonderful—and then he makes it more so by not saying that it’s his ship now, instead saying that it’s all of theirs. I just about got goosebumps from that. Saru is simply a magnificent character, and a perfect Star Trek character, and I really hope that season two of this show puts him in the center seat where he belongs. He’s struggled with being in charge before, being overly analytical about it in “Choose Your Pain,” and being subsumed by an alien consciousness in “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum,” but with that speech, Saru had his Captain Moment. It was right up there with Kirk’s “risk is our business” speech to the senior staff and Picard’s “you’ve made your choices, sir, you’re a traitor” confrontation with Jarok and Sisko silently climbing back into the box rather than give in to Alixus.

A major complaint about Discovery has been that it’s not nearly Star Trek enough, that it’s too dark, too much Battlestar Galactica and not enough Star Trek (ironic, given that the guiding force behind BSG was Ronald D. Moore, one of the best Star Trek screenwriters in its five-decade history). These last two episodes have shone a light on that and proven it to be a feature rather than a bug. Mirror-Lorca has been able to take the war with the Klingons and use it as cover to further his own agenda of getting back. He gloats in this episode about how he’s molded Discovery‘s crew into a fine bunch of soldiers, and it’s to Doug Jones’s credit that you can still see the disgust on Saru’s face even through all that latex covering his face.

But war has a disruptive effect on even a utopian society—that was one of the running themes of the final two seasons of Deep Space Nine, writ large in “In the Pale Moonlight” and a few other episodes. In the end, though, this is still Star Trek. The solution to the Dominion War wasn’t military might, it was Odo’s compassion shown toward the female Changeling.

And Discovery is a ship of science, not a ship of war. The conflict with the Klingons forced them out of that, and Lorca encouraged it in service of getting himself home. With Saru’s speech, it looks like they’re going to try very hard to get back to their true mission statement.

First, though, there’s a war to deal with. This episode ends with Discovery back home, but nine months later, and the war’s gone very badly. Be curious to see how that resolves, though I’m way more interested in how mirror-Georgiou deals with being in the mainline universe.

My third-favorite moment in the episode was the scene between Emperor Georgiou and Burnham in her little sanctuary. The emperor is holding mirror-Burnham’s insignia, which is all she has left of her protegée. Burnham is still holding Georgiou’s insignia. One of the things I liked best about “The Vulcan Hello” was the mentor/mentee relationship between Georgiou and Burnham, and one of the things I liked least about “Battle at the Binary Stars” was that Georgiou’s death meant we wouldn’t see any more of that, except maybe in flashbacks and tie-in fiction.

That relationship is why Burnham is unwilling to once again stand on an enemy ship and see herself live and Georgiou die, so she grabs the emperor and pulls her along in the transporter beam. She winds up in the mainline universe, which I can’t imagine will make her happy. The emperor had already lost her throne—Lorca’s very public takeover of the Charon pretty much spelled the end of her reign even with Lorca’s defeat—and she was looking forward to an honorable death. This isn’t that, and I can’t see her thanking Burnham.

There are still plenty of problems with this episode. There’s the perpetual Mirror Universe issue of death being meaningless because we’ve got another one, so it’s impossible to get worked up over mirror-Owokusen and mirror-Stamets being disintegrated. After the joy and wonder of “Captain Killy” in “Despite Yourself,” I was hoping for lots more of Tilly being evil, and we got precisely none of it, which is a huge disappointment and missed opportunity for Mary Wiseman. (Having said that, we still don’t know what happened to the I.S.S. Discovery—is it in the mainline universe? Might we see the actual Captain Killy?)

While I had no issue with Burnham being able to move freely about the Charon thanks to her mad Starfleet skillz (I especially liked her spoofing her signal so Landry went to the wrong place while Lorca thought he was stalling her), I had a serious problem with how easily she was able to escape the throne room and all its armed guards.

I was hoping that the shot we saw of Landry in the coming attractions last week meant we’d be seeing flashbacks to Lorca and Landry’s coup attempt and then they were sent to the mainline universe and took the places of their counterparts. But no, it turns out that the racist Landry we met in “Context is for Kings” and who died due to a terminal case of stupidity in “The Butcher’s Knifes Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry” was the actual prime Landry, and really? She was as big a dink as Lorca, and her death was more of a relief than a tragedy, and I don’t say that lightly. (Having said that, we also have Stiles in “Balance of Terror.” But where Kirk upbraided Stiles, Lorca would just encourage Landry, especially since she looks just like his lieutenant in his home universe. It’s easy to see her thriving due entirely to Lorca being her rabbi.)

The one death of an MU character that does hit is that of Lorca, because it’s the Lorca we’ve been following all along. And he mostly dies because his fatal flaw is seeing Burnham as a replacement for mirror-Burnham. They’re not the same person, and his inability to see that is what leads to being impaled on Georgiou’s sword and his body disintegrated in the mycelial orb. Burnham, of course, has the same flaw, as she insists on saving the emperor even though she isn’t her Georgiou.

It also raises the question: is the mainline Lorca still alive? Perhaps we’ll find out next week…

]]>https://www.tor.com/2018/01/29/we-will-not-accept-a-no-win-scenario-star-trek-discoverys-the-past-is-prologue/feed/162Better Off Unreleased — Captain America (1990) and Fantastic Four (1994)https://www.tor.com/2018/01/26/better-off-unreleased-captain-america-1990-and-fantastic-four-1994/
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/26/better-off-unreleased-captain-america-1990-and-fantastic-four-1994/#commentsFri, 26 Jan 2018 16:00:02 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=332166Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Marvel Comics kept trying to do their characters in Hollywood. In 1981, Stan Lee moved from New York to California to head up Marvel’s screen department. There were tons of false starts and poor attempts, as Marvel sold their film rights to any number of companies that made a pig’s […]]]>

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Marvel Comics kept trying to do their characters in Hollywood. In 1981, Stan Lee moved from New York to California to head up Marvel’s screen department. There were tons of false starts and poor attempts, as Marvel sold their film rights to any number of companies that made a pig’s ear out of it, or never got the film out. (I lost track of the number of Spider-Man films in development in the last two decades of the twentieth century, one of which was supposed to be directed by James Cameron.) We’ve already covered two of the disasters that got made: The Punisher and Howard the Duck.

Two more that were actually filmed, after long and tumultuous production histories, were never released theatrically in the U.S. Captain America, starring Matt Salinger, was released to theatres in the UK in 1990, but didn’t see the light of day in the States until 1992 on home video. Fantastic Four, executive produced by schlockmeister Roger Corman, never even got an official release, and Marvel denied its existence for a while until bootlegs started showing up on VHS.

The rights to Captain America in live-action were purchased by Cannon films in 1984, and the movie went through several script notions before the one they settled on for the 1990 film. When producer Menahem Golan was let go from Cannon, part of his severance package was to continue to control the film rights to Captain America. (Hollywood is weird.) He brought in Albert Pyun to direct, and the film was finally done.

Salinger played the title role, and if the name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the son of the author of The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger. The younger Salinger is best known for his behind-the-scenes work as a producer these days—goodness knows, this movie didn’t do his acting resumé any favors.

Fantastic Four also had the son of someone more famous, in Joseph Culp, son of Robert Culp of I, Spy and The Greatest American Hero fame. Culp played Doctor Doom, and he’s likely the only actor in this film you’ve heard of. (Well, okay, Mercedes McNab of Addams Family Values and Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame plays young Sue Storm.)

Both movies were plagued by delays and behind-the-scene shenanigans. Neue Constantin made the FF film quickly and on a low budget because if they didn’t, they’d lose the rights. Making the film extended their option by another ten years, and they were eventually able to do a more big-budget FF film, which came out in 2005 (and which we’ll cover, along with its 2007 sequel and 2015 reboot, in due course). Captain America was supposed to come out for the character’s fiftieth anniversary in 1990, but that didn’t really happen. (We won’t even get into the irony of a Captain America film only being released theatrically in England.)

“That was a gun—this is a detonator”

Captain AmericaWritten by Stephen Tolkin and Lawrence Block
Directed by Albert Pyun
Produced by Menahem Golan
Original release date: December 14, 1990

In 1936 Italy, a young prodigy’s piano playing—which is being recorded by his parents—is interrupted by Axis soldiers, who take him away and kill his family while he watches. He is the subject of an experimental procedure, created by a scientist named Dr. Maria Vaselli. It made a rat stronger and smarter, but also turned its epidermis red. The child is to be the next subject.

Horrified by her work being used to experiment on a child, Vaselli jumps out a window and escapes Italy to the United States.

Seven years later, she has spearheaded Project: Birthright, having perfected the process so it no longer turns the subject red. She also created a bulletproof shield that is a perfect boomerang and a fire-proof suit. The secret to how she created all these things is never written down, as she fears for security.

Of all the volunteers for the process, the one the Army picks is Steve Rogers, who suffers from polio, and whose father was a war hero in World War I. His girlfriend Bernie is less than thrilled at him going off on some secret mission.

The experiment is a success, but one of the observers, a man named Ehrlich who was escorted in by Lieutenant Fleming, turns out to be a Nazi spy and he shoots Vaselli dead. Rogers, now super-strong, kills Ehrlich.

Rogers recovers quickly from his gunshot wound, suffered at Ehrlich’s hands, and he is sent to try to stop a rocket created by the Red Skull (the child prodigy, all grow’d up and now with bright red skin) from destroying the White House. Captain America arrives at the Skull’s secret base only two days after he got his powers and gets his ass handed to him by the Skull. Cap is tied to the rocket so he will die when it explodes in D.C. Cap grabs the Skull’s hand, and refuses to let go, with the notion of taking the Skull with him. Rather than use his superior strength to pull away, he pulls out a knife and uses it to cut through his own wrist, er, somehow, in order to be free. (Why he doesn’t, say, cut off Cap’s hand instead is left as an exercise for the viewer.)

A young boy from Springfield, Illinois named Tom Kimball is visiting D.C. with his family. He sneaks out of the house to take a picture of the White House. He sees the missile flying toward the White House and takes a picture of it, too. Cap—who has just endured a transatlantic flight on a missile—waits until the last second to try kicking the tail of the missile so it will change course. This gets the missile to turn up and away from Washington and wind up in Alaska, er, somehow.

Kimball shows the picture to his best friend, Sam Kolawetz. Time passes in a montage of newspaper front pages, that show the passage of time and the life of Kimball, who joins the service, is a war hero in his own right, becomes a Congressperson, and eventually is elected president of the United States in 1992. Kolawetz, for his part, is now a reporter for the Washington Dispatch, and he is convinced that the Red Skull is still alive and the head of an international consortium that is responsible for many horrible things.

President Kimball is planning to attend a conference in Rome that will get rid of toxic waste and other environmental stuff. Fleming—who somehow managed to get himself promoted to general and made Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff even after he escorted a Nazi agent into a top-secret military facility in the middle of a war—tries to talk him out of the bill and fails. We soon find out that Kolawetz is 100% right about the Skull, and Fleming is part of his consortium. However, the Skull refuses to have Kimball assassinated—he tried that with the Kennedy brothers and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and they just became martyrs. Better instead to kidnap him and insert a mind-control device into his brain. Right.

Two dudes are hiking through Alaska and find a red glove sticking out through the ice. It’s attached to a body, and they bring it back to their base. Cap manages to break out of the ice cube he’s been in for five decades and immediately starts to walk. He walks south through Canada, not having any idea where he is or where he’s going.

One of the dudes took a picture, and this wound up in the newspaper. Red Skull sees this, realizes that his arch-nemesis who made him cut off his hand is back somehow, and he sends his very young daughter Valentina to go take care of it.

Kimball sees the same newspaper report and he tells Kolawetz about it. The reporter immediately heads north.

Even though it’s been a few days—the newspaper report wouldn’t have hit until the day after Cap walked out, and it probably would have taken another day for it to reach the European paper the Skull reads it in, and then another day to fly from Italy to western Canada—Valentina and her goons find Cap as he walks through the forests of Canada. Because finding one person in the middle of friggin Canada is just that easy. Kolawetz is also very nearby, er, somehow. Kolawetz sees the Italian goons shooting at Cap and gives him a lift. Cap is very confused by what’s going on, especially getting a lift from a guy driving a German pickup truck and trying to interview him with a tape recorder made in Japan. He pretends to be sick, which lures Kolawetz out of the truck, and then Cap drives off in the pickup.

After running out of gas, he stows away onto a tractor-trailer and makes his way to his old home in southern California only to find an elderly Bernie living with her husband and their daughter Sharon. Bernie is thrilled to see that Rogers survived, though she’s confused at how he looks the same.

Sharon lets Rogers crash at her place. He watches the news and looks through Kolawetz’s files and realizes that fifty years really have passed.

Kolawetz is back in his office, er, somehow, and he gets his hands on the Project: Birthright plans, er, somehow, and then flies to California to talk to Bernie—the file includes a letter Bernie wrote to Rogers back in the day. However, the Skull has bugged Kolawetz’s phone, so he sends Valentina to California. They shoot Bernie’s husband, Bernie, and Kolawetz. Only the husband survives. Sharon and Rogers arrive just as Kolawetz expires from his wounds, and Kolawetz, rather than say, “Hey, why’d you abandon me in Canada, you putz?” asks Rogers to give Kimball their decoder ring from when they were kids.

Rogers decides that the best way to find the Skull is to find Vaselli’s diary, which is probably in the secret lab, which was under a diner. Rogers and Sharon break in to the back room that leads to the lab, followed quickly by Valentina and her goons. (Why Sharon decides to go on a dangerous mission with the guy partly responsible for her mother’s death is left as an exercise for the viewer.) A firefight ensues, but our heroes are triumphant. Sharon can read Italian because she spent a plot-convenient semester in Venice, and while Vaselli never knew the name of the kid who was transformed into the Skull, she does know the village and the name of the house they lived in.

They fly to Rome, er, somehow—Rogers has no ID, no passport, no nothin’, except maybe a set of dogtags that identify him as someone born in the 1920s—and Rogers tries the same trick to leave Sharon behind that he did with Kolawetz. But when he arrives at the Skull’s boyhood home, the folks only speak Italian. Luckily, Sharon got a cab and followed him and she translates. They find the recording of the child’s piano playing, which also recorded the boy being kidnapped and his family gunned down.

The Skull kidnaps Kimball. It will take 24 hours after an injection before his brain will be ready for the implant that will control him.

Valentina and her goons try to kill Sharon and Rogers, but they escape, and Sharon gets her hands on Valentina’s purse, which she dropped in the café during the fight. Sharon then lets herself get kidnapped, freeing Rogers to don his suit and infiltrate the Skull’s HQ.

Kimball manages to escape on his own, since the title character doesn’t seem to actually be any good at superheroing, and he comments about how Sharon has been kidnapped even though he can’t possibly know who Sharon is. Cap fights off various goons, finally confronting the main bad guy. The Skull, however, has a huge bomb under his HQ that he’s going to detonate.

Sharon faces off against Valentina, while Kimball discovers that Fleming is working for the Skull. Cap plays the recording of the night the Skull watched his family being murdered to distract him long enough to toss his shield at him so he falls over a cliff into the water. On its return, the shield hits Valentina, probably killing her. Kimball calls in the Marines, and the day is won. Cap gives Kimball the decoder ring that Kolawetz entrusted to him.

“It’s clobberin’ time!”

Fantastic FourWritten by Craig J. Nevius and Kevin Rock
Directed by Oley Sassone
Produced by Steven Rabiner
Never officially released

A comet called Colossus passes by Earth once every ten years. Two grad students, Reed Richards and Victor von Doom, are working on a project to harness its energy. Richards’s best friend is Ben Grimm, and the pair of them rent rooms in a boarding house run by the Storm family, including daughter Susan and son Johnny—the former is a pre-teen with a crush on Richards.

Richards and von Doom’s experiment fails, and von Doom is believed killed—but, in fact, he has two flunkies undercover at the university, and they spirit away his body from the hospital and revive him, though he is badly scarred.

Ten years later, Grimm returns from a stint in the Air Force to discovery that Richards has built a space shuttle that will fly close to Colossus on this decade’s pass and harness its energy, and he wants Grimm to fly it. Richards has been working on this for ten years, and the final component is delivered: a gigunda diamond to channel the heat.

While the diamond is delivered, Grimm and a blind sculptor named Alicia Masters bump into each other. It’s love at first touch, but the moment passes.

Both von Doom and a creepy old dude who calls himself the Jeweler, and who lives underground with various outcasts from society, want the diamond. The Jeweler’s theft of the diamond winds up superseding von Doom’s thugs’ attempt to do so, but von Doom is okay with it, as the Jeweler replaced the diamond with a fake. Richards’s flight will still fail, and that’s all he cares about.

The now-grown-up Susan and Johnny are part of the crew as well, for reasons that are never made clear, and the four of them go up in the shuttle. However, the diamond being a fake means the shuttle crashes, but not until after all four are exposed to Colossus. The four of them survive the crash without a scratch despite the shuttle itself being toast. They soon realize that they’ve all changed. Richards can stretch his limbs like taffy, Susan can turn all or partly invisible, Johnny can make fire, and Grimm turns into a rocky, super-strong thing.

They’re taken by people posing as the U.S. military, but who actually work for von Doom, and are brought to a hospital, where they’re injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected, and selected. Eventually, they get fed up with being trapped without any contact with the outside world, so they escape. Von Doom confronts them, without revealing who he is (the metal mask he wears disguises his voice), but the foursome escape anyhow.

Masters is commissioned to do a memorial sculpture of the shuttle crew, since they’re still believed to be dead. When she receives the busts, she’s devastated to realize that the guy she bumped into in the Baxter Building was one of the ones who died. Then the Jeweler, who has admired her from afar, has her kidnapped.

Returning to the U.S., er, somehow, Richards realizes that Colossus gave them powers based on their personality traits—Richards always trying to stretch himself thin, Susan always feeling too shy to function, Johnny being a hothead, and Grimm preferring brawn over brains. But Grimm is also upset with the fact that he’s stuck looking like a rocky monster, and he storms off. One of the Jeweler’s subjects sees Grimm and invites him to join the rest of the outcasts underground.

Von Doom’s thugs try to buy the diamond from the Jeweler, but he refuses to sell—and when they try to take it by force, they find themselves outnumbered by the Jeweler’s suddenly-very-heavily-armed subjects. Thus stymied, von Doom himself goes to get the diamond, and he does so, taking Masters hostage in the bargain, which is the only thing that keeps Grimm at bay.

Susan has created doofy blue outfits with an oversized “4” on the chest—Johnny’s is also flame-retardant. She’s the only one wearing hers when von Doom calls, informing them that he has a gigunda laser and will use it to destroy New York until they come back to his castle. Grimm comes back and says he’s in, too, as he wants to rescue Masters. They fly off in some aircraft they happen to have lying around and travel to Latveria.

Richards has figured out that von Doom is his college buddy, and when von Doom traps them in four force fields, he confronts him with that. While von Doom tries to suck their powers out of them and get them for himself, Richards manages to stretch his foot out under the force field, er, somehow and free everyone. Von Doom fires the laser, and Johnny fully flames on for the first time and manages to fly ahead of the laser, er, somehow (it’s going at the speed of light, a speed that’s impossible to achieve, something said out loud by one of the professors at the university at the beginning of the film, just in case we forgot) and stop it from destroying New York. Susan and Grimm take care of von Doom’s goons, while Richards confronts von Doom himself. He falls over the castle wall, and Richards tries to rescue him, but von Doom deliberately slips out of his gauntlet and falls to his, um, doom.

The Fantastic Four, having saved New York, go back home. Richards and Susan get married (Richards and Johnny in their doofy blue “4” outfits, Susan in a wedding dress) and go off on their honeymoon.

“You remain a poor choice, little brother”

I’d been dreading this week’s rewatch even more than last week’s, but this wasn’t nearly as wretched as I feared. Captain America is just laughably bad, with fundamentally stupid script issues that make it impossible to take seriously. And Fantastic Four was only made in order to keep an option going, and it shows. The special effects are truly pathetic, and it looks like the FF film that a bunch of high school students wanted to throw together with their camcorder.

What’s particularly appalling about Captain America is how utterly ineffectual the title character is. In fact, he’s practically irrelevant. In World War II, he only goes on one mission, and he pretty much fails at it, getting his ass kicked in nothing flat. Yes, he saves the White House (though, again, why did he wait until after the transatlantic flight to kick the tail?), but that’s the sum total of his accomplishments in this movie. Kimball got himself free from his cell, at which point he called the Marines in, and that was pretty much it for the Skull. Without Cap there, he never would have even armed the bomb. And it’s only because Cap was present that Kolawetz and Bernie are killed and Bernie’s husband is wounded. The hero of World War II only went on one top-secret mission, and then he was on ice for fifty years. If it wasn’t for Sharon, he wouldn’t have found out anything about the Skull, and she’s as effective in storming the Skull’s HQ as Cap himself.

Like Reb Brown before him, Salinger at least visually fits the part (the costume actually looks good on him) and is relatively earnest, but he has no discernible personality. The only reason anybody cares about him is because the president and a reporter happen to have an awesome childhood memory associated with him, but that’s pretty much it. I spent the entire movie wondering why Sharon didn’t just tell Cap to go pound sand, since he’s at least partly responsible for the death of her mother.

As mediocre as Salinger is, though, that’s as nothing to how embarrassingly awful Scott Paulin is as the Skull. Putting on a comedy Italian accent that wasn’t even awful enough to be offensive, he’s also only the Red Skull for the WWII segment, as he has plastic surgery in the interim so now he looks—well, still awful, but no longer with bright red skin. (Bobby Morgan of Geeks of Doom said in his review of the film that he looks like he’s wearing a Henry Silva Hallowe’en mask, and that’s really the perfect description.) He’s also only marginally more effective than the hero, as he sends his daughter off to do the real work.

The rest of the cast is actually talented, though they’re wasted in this dreck. Deliverance co-stars Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty are reunited, and are typically excellent despite the best efforts of the script to make them look horrible. (In a nice touch, Beatty’s son Thomas plays the younger version of Kolawetz.) Francesca Neri is also a great actor, though you’d never know it from her pouty, wooden performance here as Valentina, and Kim Gillingham is quite engaging in the dual role of Bernie and Sharon. The true wastes here, though, are Bill Mumy and Darren McGavin as the younger and older versions of Fleming. It’s a terrible role, and both actors deserved better.

Speaking of embarrassingly awful, we have Fantastic Four, which is one of the most pathetic exercises in filmmaking you’re ever likely to see from a professional movie studio, and that’s even knowing that it was executive produced by Roger Corman, who never met a budget he couldn’t slash.

I will say this much: the one special effect they actually spent more than a buck and a quarter on, the Thing’s rocky body, worked very well. It would’ve worked better if the stunt person in the Thing outfit, Carl Ciarfalio, wasn’t so obviously shorter than the 6’4″ Michael Bailey Smith, who played Grimm.

The rest of the film looks like a 1950s B-movie, only with worse effects. The uniforms look like they were sewn together by a suburban parent who saw a picture of the comic book once, maybe. Richards’s stretching is laughably pathetic, and the gray at his temples looks like it was painted on by anyone other than a professional hair-and-makeup person. Johnny’s flames are beyond silly looking, and von Doom looks like a little kid in a knockoff Dr. Doom Hallowe’en costume.

Both movies are at least mostly true to the characters’ origins. Cap’s in particular follows the same track as the comics, though like his 1970s counterpart, they made him a southern California native instead of being from the lower east side (not Brooklyn!!!!!!) for no compellingly good reason. They also made both the Skull and the scientist who created the super-soldier formula Italian for no compellingly good reason (what, Nazis are too obvious?). At least in Vaselli they give us an Italian character who isn’t a criminal or comic relief (which is what about 95% of all Italian characters in dramatic fiction are, a constant source of irritation to your humble Italian-American rewatcher).

The FF movie also particularly nails the Richards-von Doom rivalry and the sense of family among the foursome, and it deserves credit for that. It’s not clear why the Jeweler isn’t called “the Mole Man,” since he’s very obviously patterned after that character, who was the Fantastic Four’s first opponent in the comics. And while none of the actors playing the heroes in these two movies do much to make their characters stand out or be interesting (Ciarfalio in particular fails to convey the Thing’s inherent tragedy), they are obviously trying their best.

Still, these films’ lack of wide release isn’t exactly a tragedy. They’re a relic of an era when Marvel was desperate to get their properties on the screen and didn’t seem too picky about who they sold the rights to.

Next week, two TV pilots for team shows that never got past the initial production, Generation X and Justice League of America.

Keith R.A. DeCandido is grateful to know that better movies with these characters are coming, all of which will star Chris Evans.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2018/01/26/better-off-unreleased-captain-america-1990-and-fantastic-four-1994/feed/41You Can’t Go Back to the Way Things Were — Star Trek Discovery’s “Vaulting Ambition”https://www.tor.com/2018/01/22/you-cant-go-back-to-the-way-things-were-star-trek-discoverys-vaulting-ambition/
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/22/you-cant-go-back-to-the-way-things-were-star-trek-discoverys-vaulting-ambition/#commentsMon, 22 Jan 2018 18:32:48 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=331162There are three separate-but-connected things going on in this week’s Star Trek: Discovery, and the heart of each and every one of them is embodied by the line of dialogue I borrowed for the headline, a line spoken directly by both Emperor Georgiou and by Lieutenant Stamets. Everyone wants to go back to the way things […]]]>

There are three separate-but-connected things going on in this week’s Star Trek: Discovery, and the heart of each and every one of them is embodied by the line of dialogue I borrowed for the headline, a line spoken directly by both Emperor Georgiou and by Lieutenant Stamets. Everyone wants to go back to the way things were. Stamets wants Culber to be alive and the two of them to be happy. L’Rell wants Voq not to suffer (for all that she insists that Voq’s sacrifice was voluntary and necessary). Georgiou wants her foster daughter back. And everyone on the U.S.S. Discovery just wants to get home.

The one person who does get things back the way they were? Lorca. Go fig’.

Lots of things are pulled into focus this week, which is good, as we’re running out of episodes.

First off, we find out why Stamets has been predicting the future—he hasn’t, he’s been getting flashes from mirror-Stamets, who got himself stuck in the mycelial network, and reached out to his counterpart, showing him flashes of the MU. That’s why he called Tilly “Captain,” and why he kept babbling about forests and palaces.

We also find out why Stamets’s reflection was off way back in “Choose Your Pain“: it was Stamets in the mycelial network in this episode, trying to go back to a moment of happiness. That night, when they were brushing their teeth together, was one of the last times he was truly content.

While it’s good to see Culber again, he seems to confirm that he’s dead—yet there he is talking to Stamets and giving him useful information, and saying he remembers being held by Stamets after Voq/Tyler broke his neck. There would seem to be more going on here than meets the eye—at least I hope so, partly because the death of Culber still is a sore point, partly because I have a real problem with Culber being dead yet also being a source of useful plot-moving exposition. But I’m willing to wait and see on that.

In any case, things are going poorly in mycelial-land. Mirror-Stamets has apparently mucked about with things, and he’s trapped in the network, too—he needs the mainline Stamets’s help to get out. (Watching Anthony Rapp acting across from himself is a delight, especially since mirror-Stamets is pretty much the same snarky jerk as the mainline Stamets was before he got spored.) And when he does manage to find the way out of the network, the two Stametses wind up switched, with mirror-Stamets now on Discovery, and the mainline one on the imperial flagship in mirror-Stamets’s lab. Oops. (EDITED TO ADD: It appears I was wrong about that. I’m not the only one who thought it, but Anthony Rapp his own self has confirmed that each Stamets is in the right place. Oops again.)

Speaking of the imperial flagship, Burnham’s bluff gets called because there’s a piece of information she doesn’t have. While the official record states that Burnham was killed by Lorca, it turns out that Emperor Georgiou believed Burnham and Lorca to be in cahoots. Faced with execution, Burnham goes for broke and tells the truth, using the mainline Georgiou’s insignia as proof that she’s not Georgiou’s Burnham, but rather one from another universe.

When the emperor scans the insignia and realizes it’s from the same universe as the Defiant, her response is immediate—she kills her entire court of advisors, with the exception of the one she tasks with disposing of the bodies (in exchange for which, he gets to be governor of Andor). The very existence of the mainline universe is a closely guarded secret (the data Burnham smuggled to Discovery is mostly redacted even after Saru decrypts it), so much so that Georgiou would sooner kill her closest advisors than risk them knowing anything about it. (This, by the way, also tracks with Intendant Kira’s impromptu history lesson in DS9‘s “Crossover,” talking about how the Terran Empire modified all transporters to avoid more travel between universes after “Mirror, Mirror,” an extreme reaction that makes much more sense in light of the presence of the Defiant in Enterprise‘s “In a Mirror, Darkly” and this here story arc.) We also learn that the mentor/student relationship that Georgiou and Burnham had in the mainline universe was even more intense here, as in the MU it was Georgiou, not Sarek, who raised Burnham after her parents were killed. Michelle Yeoh, as ever, just kills it here, as she has Georgiou’s calm leadership leavened with a healthy dose of cruelty—yet the affection she has for Burnham is just as strong, in its own twisted way, as it was in “The Vulcan Hello.”

My favorite part of this episode, though, is the thread with Saru, L’Rell, and Voq/Tyler. This part of the story just solidified my love of Doug Jones and of the Kelpian he plays. Saru pleads with L’Rell for help with this creature who is both Voq and Tyler and yet who is neither one—mostly he’s just a sentient being who is in a billion kinds of pain, screaming in sickbay. Sedation only goes so far. So Saru appeals to L’Rell, who just says that Voq chose this sacrifice, and if he is now suffering, then that is war.

Saru’s response is to beam Voq/Tyler into her cell and show her up close and personal what he’s going through, the human and Klingon each fighting for dominance. “This,” Saru says with that intense calm that Jones does so well, “is war.” L’Rell finally agrees to help him, and it appears that she removes Voq’s psyche, leaving only Tyler—she does the death scream (first introduced way back in TNG‘s “Heart of Glory“), which she wouldn’t do for Tyler. But again, this is something that is not 100% resolved quite yet. What I love is how Saru works here. He comes from the place that Starfleet officers are supposed to come from: compassion. He simply wants to help a fellow being. It doesn’t matter that said fellow being is a sleeper agent from an enemy nation, it doesn’t matter that he killed a member of the medical staff—he’s still a person who is suffering. And he knows that L’Rell has feelings for Voq, even if she hides it behind her protestations of duty and honor, and he counts on that affection ruling the day.

Finally, of course, we have the big revelation, something that many have speculated to be the case since the moment we first met Gabriel Lorca in “Context is for Kings“: the Lorca who has been in command of Discovery is not the one from the mainline universe. I’m guessing that the mainline Lorca died with the Buran, and mirror-Lorca took his place. He’s been working a long game, pushing the use of the mycelial network, cultivating Burnham, so he can get back to his home universe and finish his coup d’état.

Of course, fans have been speculating on Lorca being from the MU since “Context is for Kings” aired back in early October. This has resulted in a lot of people complaining about predictability, and I just want to bash my head into the wall. People have become so fond of twists and turns and revelations, that they’re disappointed when things progress as is logical from the plot. I viewed those odd things about Lorca as foreshadowing, which is how they were intended. Would people have preferred the revelation to be completely out of left field, with no hints of it, and instead have Lorca’s impersonation be flawless? That doesn’t work on several levels, not least being Spock’s comment in “Mirror, Mirror” about how hard it is for a barbarian to act like a civilized person. Lorca was managing it, but just barely, and the masquerade wasn’t going to last forever. The only way for the revelation to have meaning is to do the foreshadowing.

Given the heavily serialized nature of the show, I’m thinking that this all would have worked much better—the revelations about Voq and Tyler and Lorca in particular—if the show had been released all at once for binge-watching in smaller doses, instead of stretched out over five months. Part of that is the nature of speculation on the Internet that hyper-examines everything, which would be less of an issue if it all came out at once.

Still, I only have one problem with the revelation about Lorca, and it’s not the revelation’s existence, it’s how Burnham figures it out. Apparently, humans in the MU are more sensitive to light than humans in the mainline universe. Seeing that feature in Georgiou is what clicks everything in Burnham’s head about Lorca. But I find it simply impossible to credit that this major difference between the humans of the two universes was never mentioned in any of the previous MU episodes on three other TV shows. (The MU versions of Kirk, Scotty, Uhura, and McCoy should’ve been squinting as soon as they switched places in “Mirror, Mirror.” Archer and the gang should’ve been blinded by the bright lights on the Defiant in “In a Mirror, Darkly.” Not to mention Bashir and Sisko and Jake in the MU in the DS9 episodes.)

The best news about all this for me? Saru’s now the captain of Discovery. Let’s just hope he doesn’t find out that Kelpians are a delicacy in the MU…

If you like Keith R.A. DeCandido‘s TV and movie reviews here on Tor.com, he also writes weekly TV reviews and monthly movie reviews on his Patreon, which he started in early December. He’s reviewed Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., MacGyver, The Librarians, the Doctor Who Christmas Special, Major Crimes, and Black Lightning, as well as looks back at older shows Feed the Beast and Breakout Kings, with reviews of The Alienist and Proud Mary to come this week. Plus there are bits from his works in progress, cat pictures, and more!

]]>https://www.tor.com/2018/01/22/you-cant-go-back-to-the-way-things-were-star-trek-discoverys-vaulting-ambition/feed/220Trapped in a World They Never Made — Howard the Duck and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.https://www.tor.com/2018/01/19/trapped-in-a-world-they-never-made-howard-the-duck-and-nick-fury-agent-of-s-h-i-e-l-d/
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/19/trapped-in-a-world-they-never-made-howard-the-duck-and-nick-fury-agent-of-s-h-i-e-l-d/#commentsFri, 19 Jan 2018 17:00:05 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=330381The 1960s was the decade of the secret agent: James Bond, Our Man Flint, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Danger Man, The Avengers (the British TV show, not the American super-team), and so on. Marvel decided to cash in on this trend by taking the star of their World War II comic Sgt. Fury and His Howling […]]]>

The 1960s was the decade of the secret agent: James Bond, Our Man Flint, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Danger Man, The Avengers(the British TV show, not the American super-team), and so on. Marvel decided to cash in on this trend by taking the star of their World War II comic Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos (which debuted in 1963), aging him 20 years and making him a colonel, and putting him in charge of the Supreme Headquarters of International Espionage, Law-enforcement Division, or S.H.I.E.L.D. for short. (It was later changed to Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate.)

The 1970s was the decade of wackiness: mainstream comics took their superheroes into different places, from martial arts to horror to blaxploitation to just plain crazy. One of the particularly crazy ones came from Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik, who gave us the world’s most obnoxious funny-animal character in Howard the Duck, introduced in a Man-Thing story in a 1973 issue of Adventure into Fear.

Both characters developed cult followings, the former due in particular to the iconic, stylish artwork of Jim Steranko, the latter due to just being totally batshit. Both were made into live-action films that did not live up to their cult status even a little bit.

George Lucas was a big fan of the Howard the Duck character, and after production wrapped on American Graffiti, he approached his co-writers William Huyck and Gloria Katz about the possibility of adapting the character to film. Huyck and Katz wanted to do it as animation, while Lucas felt that his Industrial Light & Magic special effects house could make it effective in live-action. Huyck and Katz also toned down the more subversive elements of the comic books (as but one of many examples, one of Howard’s primary villains was the gleefully ludicrous Dr. Bong, who appears nowhere in the movie, a seriously missed opportunity). The movie was released in 1986, three years after Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, and when people believed that Lucasfilm Ltd. could do no wrong, a notion that this movie helped prove wrong.

Amazingly, Howard the Duck was the first Marvel Comics character to be adapted into a feature film that was shown in theatres. Marvel had had plenty of TV movies and TV series (many of which we’ve covered in this series) in the 1970s, but it took until ’86 for a theatrical release, and it was, of all things, a satirical character from the horror-comics world.

Meanwhile, in the 1990s, the FOX network had reserved Tuesday nights for movies. Sometimes they would provide the broadcast premiere of a theatrical film, but they also produced original TV movies, such as Gargantua (which your humble rewatcher actually novelized, under the pseudonym K. Robert Andreassi in early 1998), The O.J. Simpson Story, Tornado!, and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Fury was reimagined for Marvel’s “Ultimate” line in 2000 as an African-American veteran of the Gulf War, done due to the ever-shifting timeline of mainstream comics that made his being a World War II vet less and less realistic. (The Ultimate character design was patterned after avowed comics fan Samuel L. Jackson, which is at least partly how they got him to play the part in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.) But prior to that, he was a cigar-chomping white guy, a gruff drill-sergeant type very much not in the mode of the more suave secret agents that were his contemporaries in the 1960s, which was part of how the character stood out. David Hasselhoff, best known for his starring roles in Knight Rider in the 1980s and Baywatch in the 1990s, threw on an eyepatch and starred in this reimagining of the comics. This was an early comics adaptation script by David S. Goyer, who has gone on to become one of the most prolific scripters of movies we’ll see in this rewatch (as well as similar TV shows), but whose only previous comics-adaptation credit at this point was The Crow: City of Angels, though his script for Blade was also produced in ’98.

“Different lifestyles is one thing, different life-forms is another!”

Howard the DuckWritten by Willard Huyck & Gloria Katz
Directed by Willard Huyck
Produced by Gloria Katz
Original release date: August 1, 1986

Howard lives on a world where ducks are sentient, ambulatory, and mammals (based on one woman we see taking a bath). One day, he gets home from work, checks his mail and answering machine, watches TV, and suddenly finds himself sucked through the air and into a dimensional vortex, winding up on our world, specifically in Cleveland.

Everyone is, to say the least, confused by the walking, talking duck dressed in a suit. After he gets manhandled by punks and screamed at by a couple making out in an alley, he takes refuge in an empty garbage can. His reverie is interrupted by Beverly, the lead singer in a band, who is menaced by two punks. Howard and Beverly take care of them, and in gratitude (and confusion), Beverly offers to let him crash at her run-down place. Since it’s raining, Howard takes her up on it.

He reveals that he went to med school, but dropped out, and now works as an advertising copy-writer, having failed in his ambition to be a songwriter. Beverly can sympathize, as a songwriter herself. After Howard falls asleep, his wallet falls out of his pocket. Beverly goes through it and sees anatidaean versions of everything, from credit cards to currency, not to mention his driver’s license.

The next day, she takes him to see a friend of hers, Phil Blumburtt, who works at the Natural History Museum. Phil, however, is a complete putz, and also isn’t a scientist, but rather a lab assistant. Howard is fed up with humanity entirely, and he and Beverly argue and part ways.

Howard attempts to find employment, but the only job he can get is as maintenance duck/towel boy at a massage parlor/whorehouse/mud wrestling emporium, which he quits after one day. He wanders the streets of Cleveland, eventually finding his way back to the alley where he landed and the club where Beverly’s band, Cherry Bomb, plays. Impressed with their music, he confronts Ginger, their manager, who is holding back their pay until Beverly puts out. Howard starts a bar fight that ends very badly for Ginger and he agrees to stop being their manager and give them all their money.

Howard makes up with Beverly, gives the band their money, and then he goes back home with Beverly. They almost sorta kinda move toward the possibility of having sex, kind of, except Beverly backtracks and says she was kidding. Phil then arrives with a scientist friend of his and his boss, Dr. Jenning, who works at Dynatechnics, which recently did an experiment to shoot a laser into space. The laser malfunctioned and struck Howard’s planet, bringing him here. Howard really wants to go home, as Beverly is the only person he likes on Earth, and Jenning agrees to send him back.

Unfortunately, when they arrive at Dynatechnics, the laser malfunctions even more and explodes. The cops are called to deal with the damage; also Jenning is missing. The cops try to arrest Howard, but he and Beverly manage to escape. They find Jenning, who declares that a dark force has taken over his body. They don’t believe him, and once they slip away from Dynatechnics in Jenning’s car, they head to a diner. Jenning’s crazy talk and Howard’s very existence is confusing to the staff of Joe Roma’s Cajun Sushi. The denizens turn into a mob that goes after Howard, but then Jenning’s body is completely taken over by a Dark Lord of the Universe that came in on the laser and inhabited the scientist’s form. The Dark Lord all but destroys the diner, scaring away the customers, and then he takes Beverly hostage and—after stopping off at a nuclear power plant to absorb its energy to power itself—returns to Dynatechnics.

With help from Phil—who was arrested for trespassing on Dynatechnics—Howard steals an ultralight and he and Phil sort-of-almost-kind-of fly to Dynatechnics. Howard does pause along the way to buzz some duck hunters. The cops don’t catch up to them, even though an ultralight can’t go more than about 60 MPH. Upon arrival at Dynatechnics, Phil takes Howard to an untested, experimental neutron blaster, which they use to blast the Dark Lord. The creature abandons Jenning’s body, and Howard is eventually able to destroy the creature with the blaster. He also, reluctantly, destroys the laser before it can bring three more Dark Lords to Earth, thus cutting him off from home.

He decides to become Cherry Bomb’s manager, with Phil now as their roadie.

“That’s the problem with the Third Reich—no sense of humor”

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.Written by David S. Goyer
Directed by Rod Hardy
Produced by Avi Arad
Original release date: May 26, 1998

The body of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, the leader of the terrorist organization Hydra, is being held in stasis on a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base. The forces of Hydra, united under von Strucker’s daughter Andrea and son Werner, liberate von Strucker’s body, the cells of which still contains the Death’s Head Virus. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Clay Quartermain is killed in the attack by Andrea, who goes by the nickname “Viper.”

After he killed von Strucker five years previous, Colonel Nick Fury was relieved of his post as the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. However, with the theft of von Strucker’s body and the possibility that Hydra might release the Death’s Head, two agents travel to the Yukon to retrieve and reactivate Fury: Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Fury’s ex) and new agent Alexander Goodwin Pierce. Fury is only willing to take his old job back after he finds out a) about von Strucker’s body and b) about Quartermain’s death.

Director General Jack Pincer is not pleased to see Fury, but his colleagues Timothy Dugan and Gabriel Jones are thrilled to have him back. The scientist who created the Death’s Head, Arnim Zola, is in a S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse in Berlin. Fury, Fontaine, and Kate Neville (who is psychic) travel there to interrogate Zola about the virus. They’re met by an Interpol agent, Gail Runciter, who turns out to be Viper in disguise. She distracts Fury and frees Zola, poisoning Fury with the Death’s Head along the way.

Viper uses a Life-Model Decoy of Pincer to let S.H.I.E.L.D. know that she plans to detonate a missile filled with the virus in New York City unless she is paid a billion dollars. Fury—who refuses to spend his last hours in the Helicarrier sickbay—believes that she’ll kill everyone in New York either way. Fontaine takes a team to Manhattan to try to find the missiles while Fury, Neville, and Pierce do a surgical strike on Hydra’s headquarters. (Fury disobeys Pincer’s orders and Jones’s medical advice to go on the mission, and Neville and Pierce put their careers in jeopardy to help a guy they’ve only just met disobey orders for no obvious reason.) Initially, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are captured by Viper, but they manage to break out of their cell thanks to the one gadget Hydra didn’t take off them: the bomb secreted in Fury’s empty left eye socket.

Fontaine’s team finds Werner with the missiles, and Fontaine is able to shoot him in the head before he can launch them. But it turns out that Viper never intended to let Werner fire the missiles—or live. Fontaine needs the shutdown code.

Fury sends his Life-Model Decoy in to fight Viper. Zola grabs Fury’s weapon, which can only be fired by him. When Zola tries to use it, the weapon electrocutes the elderly scientist. After Viper “kills” the LMD, the real Fury manages to subdue her, and then he gets Neville to read her psychically to get the shutdown code.

While the code works, and the Helicarrier arrives soon thereafter to shut Hydra down once and for all, Viper manages to escape with her father’s body. They relocate to a redoubt where von Strucker is resurrected and they plan to restart Hydra again.

Pincer is pissed that Fury disobeyed his orders, and he plans to convene a tribunal. After he lists the charges, Fury says he forgot the charge of assault of a superior officer, and then Fury belts him. Then he and Fontaine look at the nice view from the Helicarrier.

“You don’t make me proud to be a human!”

Both the subjects of these two movies were very much products of their time. Howard the Duck was created in the very cynical and bitter 1970s, an era when the guarded optimism and tumult of the 1960s gave way to the disastrous end to the Vietnam War, fiscal crises, oil crises, hostage crises, and the first time in the country’s two-hundred-year history that the president and vice president both resigned in disgrace. Howard came out of that time: obnoxious, cynical, bitter, sleazy, cigar-smoking, lewd, crude, and slimy. Meanwhile, Nick Fury was a curious mix of two popular 1960s archetypes: the gruff World War II soldier and the secret agent fighting a high-tech war against the bad guys.

Neither of those were good fits for the eras in which their live-action movies were made. Howard the Duck was made in the 1980s, a decade that ran as far away from the 1960s and 1970s as possible. That era was all about bright primary colors, big hair, optimism, and “morning in America.” Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. was made in 1998, which was one of the worst times to do a spy thriller, as the genre was at its low ebb in the era between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers.

So I went into these movies with low expectations.

Those expectations were greatly exceeded. These may be the two worst movies I’ve seen in this rewatch so far, and given that I’ve reviewed Son of the Mask and The Crow: Wicked Prayer, I do not say this lightly.

One doesn’t have high expectations for any movie starring David Hasselhoff, truly—yes, he was a TV star twice over, but people watched Knight Rider for the car and Baywatch for the scantily clad bodies, not the meager thespic skills of their lead. But watching this movie, I was amazed that anybody ever hired David Goyer to write anything ever again. To be fair, there’s nothing else on his resumé quite as bad as this—he’s scripted or co-scripted plenty of dreadful movies, but nothing with dialogue as wretched as the nonsensical idiocy of this movie, and he’s also got some fine scripts under his belt.

And while the best writing can elevate an actor’s ability (there are tons of actors whose best work has come when Aaron Sorkin writes their dialogue, as an example), Goyer’s not that good, and most of these actors are also really that bad. Hasselhoff we all know about, but at least he brings a certain rugged charm to the proceedings, and also he looks and acts pretty much exactly like the Fury of the comics. But there’s nothing else here to grab onto. Garry Chalk and Ron Canada are completely serviceable as Dugan and Jones, at least, but both characters have been blandified so much as to be unrecognizable. Tom McBeath is awful as the tiresomely slimy Pincer (McBeath would do much better with a similar type of character, albeit one way more nuanced, when he played Maybourne on Stargate SG-1), Neil Roberts and Tracy Waterhouse are dull as dishwater as Pierce and Neville, Peter Haworth brings absolutely no menace to Zola, and Lisa Rinna manages to make Fontaine supremely boring (not helped by a script that keeps the Fury’s-girlfriend angle of the comics character, but excises all the rest of it, changing her from an elegant Italian ingenue to an ordinary agent with a 90s pixie cut).

But the worst are the dreadful, embarrassing performances by Scott Heindl as Werner, and especially Sandra Hess as Viper. These two are so over the top their ears are popping, and they’re basically impossible to take seriously as bad guys.

What’s frustrating is that the basic story of Nick Fury is perfectly fine. It’s a straightforward S.H.I.E.L.D.-versus-Hydra tale that I could easily see Jim Steranko writing and drawing in 1968. But the script is so hideously clunky, the acting so frighteningly awful, that you just sit there and wonder who they expected to like this film.

And you know what? If I had to choose between that and Howard the Duck, I’d choose Nick Fury every day of the week and twice on Sunday, because the only thing watching Howard is good for is to destroy your soul and remove your ability to feel joy and happiness.

One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen is Mac and Me, a cynical attempt to cash in on E.T. that was actually made two years after Howard, but all three movies have basically the same plot: strange creature comes to Earth and tries to go home, but befriends a couple of people and has adventures. Both Howard and Mac and Me have musical numbers inserted, though Howard’s are, at least, more organic, as Beverly is in a band, and its Cherry Bomb’s songs we get. And where E.T. had a bike ride, and Mac and Me would later have a wheelchair chase (really!), Howard gives us the absurd ultralight chase.

If one isn’t familiar with Howard’s comics origins, one could possibly see one’s way to liking this movie. Lea Thompson is engaging as Beverly, at least, and Jeffrey Jones is a delight as the Dark Lord of the Universe. But they’re the only actual good performances.

If you know the original comics, though, and especially if you like them, you’ll want to throw a shoe at the screen. None of Howard’s cynicism or sleaze is present. He barely smokes his cigar, his obnoxiousness has been toned down significantly, and the character design is way too cutesy for his cynicism to come across as anything other than an act. Beverly’s origins have also been toned down (when he met her in the comics, she was an artist’s nude model), and the Howard of the comics would never have objected to working in a massage parlor. There’s no satire in this movie, no bite, no sense of fun. In the comics, Howard faced off against Dr. Bong, Pro-Rata the Cosmic Accountant, Turnip-Man, Kidney Lady, Garko the Man-Frog, and the Winky Man. He went on road trips and ran for president. It was delightful lunacy, and this movie doesn’t even have a trace of it. Instead, they just do a movie that reminds me of Mac and Me, which is a horrible thing to do to anyone, and probably violates the Geneva Convention.

On top of all that, it’s horrendously paced. Supposedly the movie is only an hour and fifty minutes long, but I’m fairly certain it took me about seven months to get through it. I mean, we reached what I thought was the climax, and there was still half an hour left, and I was about ready to gnaw my leg off at the knee.

It’s really too bad that this movie was so horrible, because Howard is a great character who has been unfairly maligned by association with this movie. (The character has also been the subject of two different lawsuits, one by Gerber against Marvel, one by Disney against Marvel—yes, that’s weird to write now—because the Mouse thought the character was too similar to Donald Duck. Marvel won both suits, though Gerber managed to “reclaim” his character through a secret crossover in 1996 between Spider-Man Team-Up #5 and The Savage Dragon/Destroyer Duck #1.) The only post-credits scene in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that failed was the one at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, because either people had no idea who that talking duck was, or they thought it was that guy from what was the nadir of Lucasfilm’s oeuvre prior to 1999.

Maybe they’ll make it work eventually.

Anyhow, next week we go from the ridiculous to the sublime, as we get two adaptations that never actually made it to theatres, with good reason, 1990’s Captain America and 1994’s Fantastic Four.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2018/01/19/trapped-in-a-world-they-never-made-howard-the-duck-and-nick-fury-agent-of-s-h-i-e-l-d/feed/34“We are still Starfleet” — Star Trek Discovery’s “The Wolf Inside”https://www.tor.com/2018/01/15/we-are-still-starfleet-star-trek-discoverys-the-wolf-inside/
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/15/we-are-still-starfleet-star-trek-discoverys-the-wolf-inside/#commentsMon, 15 Jan 2018 19:37:18 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=329187It really does suck to be Michael Burnham. I mean, first you had the whole thing with her parents being killed, and then she was raised on a planet that isn’t exactly kind and benevolent toward humans (or much of anybody), she got screwed out of going to Vulcan Space School, and then she got […]]]>

And all of that is as nothing compared to the crap she goes through in “The Wolf Inside.” I got dinged last week for not putting up sufficient spoiler alerts, so SPOILER ALERT! LOTSA SPOILERS FOR “THE WOLF INSIDE” IN THIS POST! ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE!

The revelations do come fast and furious this week. All speculation about Voq and Tyler is put to rest, as it’s established that yes, Ash Tyler was taken prisoner by the Klingons, but Voq was then surgically altered to look like him and they superimposed Tyler’s memories and personality over Voq’s. Tyler’s personality was strong enough for a while to keep Voq in check, even after L’Rell spoke the key phrase last week, but when Tyler and Burnham meet the leader of the resistance against the Terran Empire, and it turns out to be Voq, it all breaks down. Voq sees himself working with Andorians, Tellarites, and Vulcans, and it’s like seeing himself betrayed. He attacks mirror-Voq, jeopardizing Burnham’s covert mission to save the resistance while maintaining her cover.

And one member of that resistance is Sarek of Vulcan. With a goatee, of course, thus continuing the tradition started by Spock in “Mirror, Mirror” and continued by Soval in “In a Mirror, Darkly,” of Vulcans with facial hair. Sarek’s mind-meld with Burnham enables her to save the rebels and save face with the empire, and also give the bearded Sarek hope for the future by seeing the mainline universe and its United Federation of Planets.

But with the reassertion of Voq’s personality, Burnham’s life falls apart. Tyler earlier said that Burnham was his tether—analogizing her to the tether they used in flight school for cadets flying ships for the first time—and he was hers as well as she navigated this horrible alternate timeline. Then, not only does she learn that her lover is really a Klingon spy, but he’s the guy she fought on the ship of the dead when she killed T’Kuvma and Georgiou was killed. Oh, and he admits to killing Culber, a revelation that shocks Burnham to her core because Saru hasn’t actually informed her that Culber’s dead. (Understandably so, as it would distract her from her mission, but damn. Burnham makes up for it by not telling Saru that his counterpart is her slave in the MU.)

Then at the end, Burnham’s attempt to save the resistance by giving them time to escape before bombarding the planet is done in by the appearance of the emperor. The imperial vessel bombs the crap out of the planet, possibly killing mirror-Sarek—and then we find out that the “faceless” emperor is, in fact, Philippa Georgiou.

And the moment of revelation is superb—made more so by Michelle Yeoh not being listed in the opening credits as she was in her other threeappearances to preserve the surprise.

With all that, though, Burnham never loses sight of the mission—and of who she is. As great as the moment is when Georgiou’s image appears on the I.S.S. Shenzhou‘s bridge, it’s not the crowning moment of awesome in the episode. That honor is reserved for Saru when Tyler/Voq—after being beamed out into space on Burnham’s order as punishment for trying to kill Burnham—is beamed aboard Discovery and put under arrest. They may be in the Universe Of Evil, but they’re still on a mission of peace and they’re still in the business of saving lives rather than taking them. That’s why Burnham beamed down to the resistance base under the cover of gaining intelligence about the rebels before destroying them, so she could save lives. And even though she condemns Voq/Tyler to death, even going so far as to operate the transporter herself, she uses that to save lives. After placing the data disc with the encrypted intelligence on the Defiant in Tyler’s uniform under cover of punching him, she beams him away herself, solidifying her position as captain of the Shenzhou while giving Saru and the others a chance to decrypt the intel safely.

When Voq bitches about being captured instead of dying with honor, Saru has that great moment: “We are stranded in a cruel anarchic world, but we are still Starfleet. We still live and die by Federation law.” I grinned when Georgiou appeared, but I cheered when Saru said this line, delivered to absolute perfection by Doug Jones, who remains the unheralded rock star of this show.

More to the point, though, is that our heroes are just that: heroes. Burnham and Saru are both working hard to save lives. (Even mirror-Saru, a slave, maintains his nobility, as he saves Burnham from being killed by Voq.)

Well, some of them are. Lorca’s instinct is for Burnham to follow orders and destroy the rebel base from orbit. (“It’s the only way to be sure” says the ghost of Ellen Ripley.) It’s Burnham who has to remind him that they’re still Starfleet, something that Lorca’s first officer knows and that his disgraced mutineer specialist knows, so why doesn’t he? There’s still way too much we don’t know about Gabriel Lorca, and we’re running out of episodes to find out what his deal is.

Luckily, there’s plenty else to chew on here. Besides the ongoing MU mishegoss and Burnham’s soul being chewed on by rabid ferrets, we have poor Paul Stamets. Tilly and Saru figure out how to cure him, but then he seems to die. Of course, my wife and I both remembered that the tardigrade went into hibernation, so why didn’t Tilly or Saru recall it? Or the medical staff who came in to try to revive him? (I’m also disappointed that we only saw Tilly as Cadet Tilly and never once as Captain Killy, because seriously, that was awesome. Maybe next week…)

But of course Stamets survived because Anthony Rapp is in the opening credits, and while Discovery has left us a nice big trail of dead bodies, up to Culber last week, it’s been all people listed as guest stars, not stars. Not only is Stamets still alive, but as we see him in the mindscape of the mycelial network, he encounters his MU counterpart. So next week, we’ll get to see Stamets talking to himself…

I can say without a doubt that this is the best episode of Discovery so far, and this episode has been the best use of the Mirror Universe since its first appearance five decades ago. (DS9‘s forays were entertaining funhouse-mirror looks, but only one or two of them had any gravitas, and Enterprise‘s two-parter was a consequence-free tale that had no stakes for the actual characters we cared about.) The best stories are the ones where our heroes are challenged and still come out ahead. Burnham’s incredibly difficult journey to redemption has been the through-line of this first season of a new Trek, and this week has been the most thrilling part of that journey to date. This is also the episode that has me most anticipating next week, but that’s purely because we’ll get a whole hour of Michelle Yeoh being badass, and I’d be on board for that in any context anywhere.

Keith R.A. DeCandido urges folks to support his Patreon, where he’s providing a bunch of different things, including monthly movie reviews (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), weekly TV reviews (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., MacGyver, The Librarians, Doctor Who‘s Christmas Special, Major Crimes), excerpts from his works in progress (currently his urban fantasy novel A Furnace Sealed), monthly vignettes featuring his original characters (a holiday bit featuring Cassie Zukav, weirdness magnet), and tons and tons of cat pictures, with more to come. Do check it out!

]]>https://www.tor.com/2018/01/15/we-are-still-starfleet-star-trek-discoverys-the-wolf-inside/feed/143Hit Comics Properties that Became Movie Flops — Steel and Spawnhttps://www.tor.com/2018/01/12/hit-comics-properties-that-became-movie-flops-steel-and-spawn/
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/12/hit-comics-properties-that-became-movie-flops-steel-and-spawn/#commentsFri, 12 Jan 2018 16:00:39 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=328269The seeds of this week’s superhero movie rewatch—both 1997 releases—were sown in 1992. At DC, there were four monthly titles starring Superman: Action Comics, The Adventures of Superman, Man of Steel, and Superman. In ’92, “The Death of Superman” was the major storyline running through all four titles, culminating in the man of steel’s death […]]]>

The seeds of this week’s superhero movie rewatch—both 1997 releases—were sown in 1992.

At DC, there were four monthly titles starring Superman: Action Comics, The Adventures of Superman, Man of Steel, and Superman. In ’92, “The Death of Superman” was the major storyline running through all four titles, culminating in the man of steel’s death at the hands of Doomsday. Four heroes took on the mantle of Superman following his death, one in each of those titles. In Man of Steel by Louise Simonson & Jon Bogdanove, they focused on John Henry Irons, a ballistics expert who created a suit of armor and called himself Steel.

At Marvel, several of the company’s most popular artists—Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Marc Silvestri, Erik Larsen, and Todd McFarlane—left Marvel to form their own creator-owned company, Image Comics. McFarlane’s contribution to Image’s first wave of titles was a dark hero known as Spawn.

Both heroes starred in their own live-action movies five years after their debuts.

Steel was the only one of the four “Supermen” who wasn’t claiming to be the original. Superboy was a clone of Superman and Lex Luthor. The Last Son of Krypton and the Cyborg Superman both claimed to be the original, albeit changed—the former was, in fact, the Eradicator, a Kryptonian artifact that programmed itself to believe it was Superman, while the latter was a villain named Hank Henshaw running a long con.

Irons, though, was simply in it as a tribute to Superman, using his scientific skills to construct a suit of armor that would enable him to be a hero in the mode of Superman. After Superman returned, he removed the logo from his armor’s chest and continued as Steel.

Spawn was a creation of McFarlane, who had made his bones as an artist, and later writer/artist, of Spider-Man. A former Marine who did black ops for the CIA, Al Simmons comes back from hell as a spirit of vengeance of sorts.

Both characters are African-American, both characters were born of major events in the comics industry, and both characters had 1997 live-action films that disappointed mightily at the box office. Steel was written and directed by Kenneth Johnson (of The Incredible Hulk, V, and The Bionic Woman fame), while Spawn was a collaboration between horror screenwriter Alan B. McElroy and first-time director Mark A.Z. Dippé.

(Also both characters were better served by animation—Spawn was also a long-running animated series on HBO that got its own spinoff movie, with Keith David providing the lead voice, and on which McElroy also worked; Steel was part of the DC Animated Universe, appearing in both Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited, voiced by, respectively, Michael Dorn and Phil LaMarr.)

“I never could make free-throws”

SteelWritten and directed by Kenneth Johnson
Produced by Quincy Jones & David Salzman & Joel Simon
Original release date: August 15, 1997

The Army is testing new laser and sonic weapons made by a team under the command of Colonel David. Said team includes Lieutenants John Henry Irons, Susan Sparks, and Nathaniel Burke. They’re doing a demo for a U.S. senator, and Burke decides to impress the senator by turning the sonic setting to its highest level. It hasn’t been tested at that level, though, and the backwash destroys the building they’re in. The senator is killed, Sparks is maimed, left paraplegic by rubble crushing her spine, and Burke is court-martialed. He inexplicably is only dishonorably discharged, not imprisoned. Irons resigns his commission, while Sparks is sent to a VA hospital.

Irons returns home to Los Angeles, reunited with his baby brother Martin, his grandmother Odessa, and his uncle Joe. He gets a job as a welder, tries to keep Martin on the straight-and-narrow, and watches his grandmother try to meld French cooking with soul food.

Burke also arrives in L.A., hooking up with a colleague who owns a video arcade and uses it as a front for weapons sales. He wants to use the dealer’s resources to re-construct the laser and sonic weapons and sell them to the highest bidder. The initial test wounds the person testing it, and the dealer’s assistant is not pleased. Burke retaliates by blowing up an elevator she’s in. This inexplicably gets the security chief on Burke’s side and doesn’t alienate the arms dealer. (Nor does anyone in law-enforcement appear to investigate this triple homicide—there were two innocent bystanders in the elevator.) Burke also makes sure to hire Martin to work for him, as he wants to stick it to Irons, who testified against him at the court-martial.

Burke uses a street gang to field test the weapons by robbing a bank. A cop friend of Irons is escorting him and Martin to a community meeting when the robbery call comes in. The cop is wounded, and Irons, recognizing the weapons used, gives chase to one robber who got left behind. The kid refuses to give up where he got the weapons and gets away.

Sparks is rotting in a VA hospital in St. Louis. Irons springs her and brings her to Uncle Joe’s junkyard. Together, they fashion a suit of armor for Irons to wear so he can stop the weapons from hurting anyone else. Once he welds the armor and Sparks provides the tech (with Joe providing the parts that are fresh off the truck they fell off of, ahem), he goes out and stops a few muggers and gang-bangers before taking on Burke’s gang, who have very generously waited until Irons made and tested his armor and hammer before striking again. Irons is unable to stop them.

While Burke puts the word out on the Internet that he’s auctioning these weapons off to the highest bidder, Irons is arrested, since the cops think he’s part of the gang. (It doesn’t help that Irons runs from the cops and even attacks them, however lightly.) Sparks and Joe manage to engineer an escape by spoofing the voice of the district attorney, and then Irons armors up and goes after Burke—but Burke has kidnapped Sparks and holds her hostage to keep Irons in line. However, Irons tricks Burke into activating the electromagnet in the hammer, and Sparks has tricked out her wheelchair with weapons of its own. They’re able to escape. Burke is killed when his laser is reflected back on him when he fires on the armored Irons.

The weapons are confiscated and off the streets, and Irons says he’s retiring from the hero business, and they go to Odessa’s new restaurant to celebrate.

“How come God gets all the good followers and we get the retards?”

Lt. Colonel Al Simmons is doing black ops work for a government agency known as A-6, run by an immoral asshole named Jason Wynn. After assassinating a dictator that results in collateral damage to civilians, Simmons says he wants out. Wynn reluctantly agrees, but just-one-more-jobs him, sending him to North Korea to destroy a biological weapon. Except when he arrives, he finds Wynn and his other top agent, Jessica Priest, there. They burn him alive and blow up the facility, letting loose the bio-weapon on a local city.

Simmons dies and goes to hell, returning five years later covered in burns, and thinking that he only just died in Korea. His memory is restored by a demonic clown—who is also working with Wynn. Malebolgia, the devil, wants Simmons to lead the army of hell to the apocalypse on Earth. In order to prove himself, he must kill Wynn, and if he does so, he’ll get his wife Wanda back. Simmons doesn’t believe it until he digs up his own dead body. (He knows it’s his body because it has the locket with his and Wanda’s pictures, which he holds onto.)

Simmons wants to kill Wynn in any case, as well as Fitzgerald, his best friend who is now married to his wife. They also have a daughter named Cyan. Simmons attacks a reception that Wynn is attending. Fitzgerald now does PR work for A-6, assuring the public that everything’s fine, even though Wynn is using the agency to further his own thirst for power. Wynn plans to sell the bio-weapon, Heat-16, which has been refined and weaponized over the last five years, to the highest bidder.

After raiding A-6’s armory, Simmons attacks a reception that Wynn and Fitzgerald are attending. He kills Priest, but is overwhelmed by A-6 security and the police before escaping.

Another hellspawn soul Malebolgia tried to recruit—a medieval assassin named Cogliostro—tries to convince Simmons to rebel as he did. But all Simmons can think about is getting Wanda back and getting revenge on Wynn.

The clown convinces Wynn to get a pacemaker that will serve as a dead-man switch—if Wynn’s heart stops, Heat-16 will be released all over the world. The clown is playing both sides, hoping that either Simmons will kill Wynn, thus unleashing a genocidal plague, or Wynn will kill Simmons, thus allowing the clown to lead the army of hell in Simmons’s place.

After the clown attacks Simmons in his true form as a demon known as the Violator and leaves him pinned to a fence, Cogliostro rescues Simmons and tries to train him in how to use his hellspawn armor as a weapon of his mind.

He goes to see Wanda and Cyan. Fitzgerald has already learned of Wynn’s plans, and tried to e-mail Wynn’s files to a reporter, but Wynn himself showed up and shot up Fitzgerald’s computer before the e-mail could send. Wynn and the clown take Wanda, Fitzgerald, and Cyan hostage. Simmons and Cogliostro fight them, with the clown taking them to hell directly. Cogliostro manages to wound the clown in his Violator form, while Simmons destroys the hell-army he’s supposed to lead, er, somehow. Malebolgia tells him he can’t leave, and then he and Cogliostro leave. Okay, then.

Simmons pulls the pacemaker out of Wynn, er, somehow, thus ending the threat to the world—though he doesn’t kill Wynn. The Violator takes one last shot at killing him, but Simmons manipulates the chains from his armor to cut off the Violator’s head, which kills the clown permanently.

Wynn is arrested, and Simmons realizes he needs to leave his family alone for them to be safe. But he does leave the locket with Cyan.

“Lookit here, boy, you ain’t Superman”

I have to confess to always having had a fondness for the John Henry Irons character. His monthly title, which was written first by his co-creator Simonson, and then by Christopher Priest, was one of my favorites. And of all the pretenders to Superman’s mantle in “Reign of the Supermen,” he was the one I liked best (though Superboy was fun, too).

I can’t really say the same for Spawn, which I could just never get into. McFarlane’s art has always been superb, if a bit stylized, but it was stylized in a way that worked. However, his writing has always left me cold. (I still shudder every time I remember the caption box from his Spider-Man #1 in 1990: “His web line—ADVANTAGEOUS!” Say what?)

But, holy cow, did both their live-action movies suck the wet farts out of dead pigeons.

I watched Steel and thought, “Wow, is this embarrassing,” and then I watched Spawn and didn’t realize when I had it so good. Steel is terrible, but at least it’s harmless—and its heart is in the right place, as ultimately it’s about a hero who does the right thing. (Although the ease with which Steel uses stolen equipment and fights the cops is a bit off-putting.) Spawn, though doesn’t even have heart. It’s just a dank, dark, ugly story about dank, dark, ugly people. John Henry Irons became Steel to keep people from being hurt. Al Simmons became Spawn because he’s good at killing people. While there’s a level of tragedy to Simmons, it’s a pretty shallow level, all told, and he’s mostly an awful person whose notion of a conscience is half-assed and half-hearted.

The primary issue with both movies is that they’re led by gentlemen who act horribly. Michael Jai White can act—he did an excellent job two years prior to this in the title role on the HBO miniseries Tyson, not to mention his brilliant comic turn in Black Dynamite—but he shows no evidence of it here. To be fair, neither do John Leguizamo or Melinda Clarke, who have also given excellent performances elsewhere, but who both are truly dreadful here. Leguizamo in particular is just painful to watch, giggling and goofing and being forced to utter the lamest of lame comic dialogue while wearing a fat suit. The only person actually trying is Martin Sheen, who puts in a delightfully evil performance as Wynn.

The contrast is far worse in Steel, because Shaquille O’Neal really really really can’t act. His bright smile is infectious, but this was a disastrous casting of a scientist on the same level as Denise Richards in The World is Not Enough or Adam Baldwin in Gargantua. He’s surrounded by some fine talent in Annabeth Gish and Richard Roundtree as the Oracle-like Sparks and Uncle Joe, respectively, which only serves to shine a light on his considerable thespic limitations.

Speaking of thespic limitations, we have Steel’s awful bad guy. Where Sheen is Spawn’s saving grace, Judd Nelson just exacerbates the problems with Steel with a two-dimensional performance of a one-dimensional character. (Hill Harper is much better—and much more fun—as the crazed Slats. I almost didn’t recognize Harper with shaved head and eyepatch…)

Scriptwise, both movies hew pretty closely to the comics. While Steel’s connection to Superman is removed (excepting the Superman tattoo that O’Neil already has, so they make sure to show it a few times), the storyline is pretty much the same as that of the comics, as Irons learns that a weapon he helped develop for the military winds up on the streets used by gangs. (Johnson claimed to have created an entirely new storyline for Steel removed from the comics, but this is blatantly false, as it’s the exact same storyline, with only small details changed.) As for Spawn, it’s pretty much a straight adaptation of the earliest days of the Spawn comic, with only the character of Chapel (who was part of Rob Liefeld’s Youngblood comic, and therefore owned by Liefeld and not McFarlane) changed to Priest, and Fitzgerald cast with a white actor, because heaven forfend we have a movie where all the protagonists are black.

Both movies make reference to other, much better movies that the supporting actors have starred in, with the clown making two different riffs on Apocalypse Now, which Sheen starred in, while Richard Roundtree references his most famous role by talking about how proud he is of the work he did on the shaft of Steel’s hammer.

In addition, both movies suffer greatly from the transition to live-action. Steel’s armor in the comics looks bad-ass; Steel’s armor in live-action looks like a doofy rubber suit. Plus there are holes for the eyes and mouth that look absurd (it’s a full-face helmet in the comics). And while nobody draws a massive, flowing, ragged cape better than Todd McFarlane, in live-action with 1997-level CGI, the cape looks hilariously absurd. (Recognizing this, the filmmakers only have the cape appear sparingly, but every time, it looks awful.) Speaking of 1997-level CGI, every scene in hell is just embarrassing two decades down the line. Malebolgia looks like a monster created on somebody’s home computer after their first graphics class—a class they will go on to fail. (Here’s a hint, folks—if you’re going to have a big-ass demon with a huge mouth and massive teeth, that mouth should really move when he speaks…)

I will give Spawn credit for one thing: Nicol Williamson, in what turned out to be his final film role—he retired from acting after this—gives a restrained performance. That’s an adjective I have never given to any other Williamson role.

Next week, we go from the ridiculous to the sublime, as we examine Howard the Duck and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D

Keith R.A. DeCandido urges folks to check out his Patreon, where you can get cat photos, regular TV and movie reviews (he’s reviewed Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., MacGyver, The Librarians, and the Doctor Who Christmas Special), excerpts from his upcoming fiction works, exclusive original vignettes featuring his original characters, and more niftiness.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2018/01/12/hit-comics-properties-that-became-movie-flops-steel-and-spawn/feed/31The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side — Star Trek Discovery’s “Despite Yourself”https://www.tor.com/2018/01/08/the-mirror-crackd-from-side-to-side-star-trek-discoverys-despite-yourself/
https://www.tor.com/2018/01/08/the-mirror-crackd-from-side-to-side-star-trek-discoverys-despite-yourself/#commentsMon, 08 Jan 2018 15:45:35 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=327539After a two-month wait, Star Trek Discovery returns with new episodes and answers several questions while asking three or four more, and also, sadly, providing us with a TV Trope that I’m not entirely sure Trek needed to participate in. The big thing, though, is that we’re back in the Mirror Universe, making Discovery the […]]]>

After a two-month wait, Star Trek Discovery returns with new episodes and answers several questions while asking three or four more, and also, sadly, providing us with a TV Trope that I’m not entirely sure Trek needed to participate in.

The big thing, though, is that we’re back in the Mirror Universe, making Discovery the fourth series to visit that particular alternate timeline established in 1967’s “Mirror, Mirror” on the original series, and the ninth single episode to deal with the MU. And since Discovery is still in the MU at episode’s end, and the previews include Sarek with a goatee, then we’re guaranteed to hit double digits in MU Trek episodes in a week’s time. Yay?

The episode opens by establishing that Discovery isn’t actually lost in space, as I feared at the end of “Into the Forest I Go,” but rather in the right place in the wrong universe. They’re at the coordinates intended, but there’s no starbase, and there is a graveyard of ships.

They soon learn that the ships are crewed by Vulcan, Andorian, and Klingon rebels against the Terran Empire, as first seen in “Mirror, Mirror.” Lorca realizes that they need to assimilate into this universe and blend in until they can figure out a way home so they can get their intel about the Klingon cloaking device to Starfleet to win the war. Stamets is in no shape to run the spore drive again, so they need to find an alternative.

To episode writer Sean Cochran’s credit, this episode makes good use of all the past MU episodes, as well as another episode that was all about many-universes theory, “Parallels” on The Next Generation. Saru determines that they’re in another universe by the quantum signature of the matter around them (also how they did it in “Parallels” with Worf), and it is the discovery (ahem) in the records of one of the derelict rebel ships that they learn of their universe’s U.S.S. Defiant that somehow wound up in this universe’s past (as established in TOS’s “The Tholian Web” and Enterprise’s “In a Mirror, Darkly” two-parter). On top of that, the episode uses the plot device from Deep Space Nine of our star disguising herself as her dead MU counterpart—Sisko in “Through the Looking Glass” and “Shattered Mirror,” Burnham here. And we get all the usual Terran Empire stuff from “Mirror, Mirror,” including the salute, ascension by assassination, and the agony booths. (Though instead of uniforms that reveal more skin, we instead get uniforms that are better armored, thus retroactively making the MU Starfleet smarter than the mainline one…)

Lorca even is kind enough to lampshade the structural absurdity of the MU, as it makes no sense scientifically that a universe that is so much different would have the same people in it mostly arranged in the same manner as they are in the mainline universe. I have to confess to really enjoying Lorca saying to Burnham, “Geez, that’s really weird,” and then moving on.

One of the themes of “Mirror, Mirror” was spoken by Spock at the end: it is easier for a civilized person to pretend to be a barbarian than the other way ’round, and we get two entertaining examples of it here. Burnham is scarily effective as Captain Burnham of the I.S.S. Shenzhou, but that’s as nothing compared to the perverse delight of Cadet Tilly pretending to be Captain Tilly—or, rather, the deliberately unimaginatively nicknamed “Captain Killy”—of the I.S.S. Discovery. The line about cutting out tongues and using them to lick her boots was epic, and I must confess that the thing I’m most looking forward to next week is more of Captain Killy. (They also establish that, just as in “Mirror, Mirror,” the two Discoverys switched places, and I wonder if, unlike the TOS episode, we’ll actually see the I.S.S. Discovery in depth in the mainline universe.)

The fun of MU episodes is getting to see the characters we know and love in different situations, though there hasn’t been much of that yet, beyond the play-acting. The only people we see actual MU counterparts of are Connor and Detmer, who are minor bridge characters (though it was cool seeing an unscarred Detmer on the I.S.S. Shenzhou bridge when Burnham had just left the mainline one on Discovery’s bridge). But, as I discussed when going through DS9’s MU forays, particularly “The Emperor’s New Cloak,” once the novelty wears off, there isn’t a lot of there there, and the fact that this seems to be a multipart storyline is irritating.

The other big reveal is that, yes, Tyler is really Voq. Unfortunately, something’s gone wrong with the conditioning. L’Rell says the key phrase that will restore Voq’s personality—a prayer to Kahless—but it doesn’t work. At least not entirely. Tyler blacks out periodically, but he doesn’t revert to Voq as L’Rell expects, though the conditioning is there enough to protect himself from being discovered.

That latter is the big elephant in the room, as Tyler kills Culber to keep Culber from removing him from duty.

On the one hand, this is a very effective character death, because Culber is someone we care about, and Tyler—even if it’s an artificial personality overlaid over Voq’s—is also someone we care about, and the latter kills the former in order to protect the secrets of the real personality under Tyler’s. Like the death of Georgiou—which has hung over every episode like a shroud—and unlike the death of Landry—who was redshirted after being established as unlikeable anyhow, so who really cares, which is entirely the wrong way to do this—Culber’s death packs an emotional wallop.

On the other hand, does television really need anotherLGBT character to be fridged? Removed from the context of the rest of television, this is a powerful and effective scene, one that had me and my wife both literally gasping out loud in shock and anguish. Leaving aside any other considerations, Culber is a fun, interesting, likeable character whom it was fun to get to know. And now we won’t get to. Plus, having him be a victim of Tyler makes sense because, as a doctor, he’s in the best position to expose Voq.

But can one entirely remove it from the context of the rest of television? Hell, Discovery’s storytelling mode is very much dictated by the rest of television, as it’s very much Trek as a 2010s TV show. Unfortunately, the 2010s are littered with LGBT corpses, and it grows wearisome.

Because Discovery is a 2010s TV show, of course, we don’t have the whole story yet. These reviews of mine have been full of complaints and speculations and criticisms that have turned out to be unfounded because of what was revealed later, and most of those revelations have been good ones, so I’m willing to give a conditional benefit of the doubt, especially given my own conflicted feelings about Culber’s death. (It really was incredibly effective from a storytelling perspective. But Jesus fuck, people, really?)

Having said all that, most of my issues with the episode were ones I didn’t even really start thinking about until after it was over. While I was watching it, I was completely absorbed, to the point that I was stunned to realize the episode was almost over when Burnham killed Connor. Ever since he cut his teeth going behind the camera on TNG, I have found Jonathan Frakes to be one of the finest television directors extant, and his superlative career since then has only solidified this opinion (he’s currently an executive producer and regular director on The Librarians). This definitely goes in the upper echelon of his Trek directing work, along with “Reunion” and “Cause and Effect.”

Now we just have to see where this goes……

Since he last reviewed a Discovery episode, Keith R.A. DeCandido has started a Patreon, where he’s providing a bunch of different things, including monthly movie reviews (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), weekly TV reviews (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., MacGyver, The Librarians, and Doctor Who‘s Christmas Special), excerpts from his works in progress (currently his urban fantasy novel A Furnace Sealed), monthly vignettes featuring his original characters (a holiday bit featuring Cassie Zukav, weirdness magnet), and tons and tons of cat pictures, with more to come. Do check it out!

]]>https://www.tor.com/2018/01/08/the-mirror-crackd-from-side-to-side-star-trek-discoverys-despite-yourself/feed/150“We’re not your classic heroes” — Mystery Men and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemenhttps://www.tor.com/2017/12/29/were-not-your-classic-heroes-mystery-men-and-league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen/
https://www.tor.com/2017/12/29/were-not-your-classic-heroes-mystery-men-and-league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen/#commentsFri, 29 Dec 2017 15:30:05 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=323855Both Mystery Men and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen were movies based on comic books that riffed on the concept of superhero teams. The former bore only a passing resemblance to the team that showed up in Flaming Carrot Comics, and it took a more direct satirical approach than the surrealist satire of Bob Burden’s […]]]>

Both Mystery Men and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen were movies based on comic books that riffed on the concept of superhero teams. The former bore only a passing resemblance to the team that showed up in Flaming Carrot Comics, and it took a more direct satirical approach than the surrealist satire of Bob Burden’s various comics series.

The latter gave the Avengers/Justice League treatment to various late-19th-century literary heroes. The only ones that were in both the Alan Moore/Kevin O’Neill comic and in the film were Allan Quatermain, Mina Harker (née Murray), Jekyll & Hyde, Captain Nemo, and Professor Moriarty. (A different invisible man was used, and Fu Manchu dropped, both due to rights issues.)

Neither film was a huge success, though one of them really should have been.

Flaming Carrot Comics was a weird-ass sendup of superheroes by Burden that has appeared sporadically since 1979. It stars a guy who wears a mask in the shape of a giant flaming carrot, and who says, “Ut!” a lot. It was revealed in flashback that he was part of a group called the Mystery Men, and in 1999, the Mystery Men were adapted into their own feature film (not featuring the Flaming Carrot, more’s the pity).

Alan Moore and the WildStorm Comics imprint of Image formed America’s Best Comics in 1999, and their flagship title was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. After doing a couple of miniseries, WildStorm was purchased by DC Comics. Moore had sworn never to work for DC again, but he continued the imprint for a time, eventually bringing it to a close. LEG was moved over to Top Shelf and Knockabout Comics.

The 2003 adaptation of LEG was the last film ever adapted from a Moore comic that had Moore’s name on it. Having been dissatisfied with the experiences of both From Hell and this being adapted, he refused to have his name on V for Vendetta or Watchmen, nor to accept any money for the adaptations.

It was also Sean Connery’s swan song. After playing Allan Quatermain in this film, he retired from acting (though he has done some voiceover work since). Allegedly, Connery took the role of Quatermain because he’d turned down appearing as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films, a decision he regretted once those movies became big hits. One wonders what that alternate universe looks like…

“We’ve got a blind date with destiny and it looks like she’s ordered the lobster!”

In Champion City, the Red Eye Gang attacks a nursing home. Three superheroes—the Blue Raja, who throws forks with inconsistent accuracy; the Shoveler, who speaks softly and carries a big shovel; and Mr. Furious, who, um, gets mad a lot—try and fail to stop the gang. Then Captain Amazing shows up, and he dispatches them with ease.

After semi-politely blowing off the three lesser heroes, Captain Amazing speaks briefly to the press, and does a terrible job of pretending to be nice to his adoring public, who still adore him anyhow. He gets into his limo with his publicist, and laments that all the good supervillains are dead or in jail, so he’s reduced to saving old people from idiots. He’s already lost Pepsi as a sponsor, and he’s worried he’ll lose more endorsements if he doesn’t do something spectacular.

One of his most challenging foes was Casanova Frankenstein, who’s been imprisoned in an insane asylum for twenty years. He’s up for parole, and Amazing decides that the villain needs to be free so he can get a good win. In his secret identity as billionaire Lance Hunt, he speaks before the parole board. While Hunt claims to be fine with keeping Casanova in prison, he has a note from Amazing saying that he deserves a second chance. Casanova’s shrink also agrees, and he’s freed.

Furious, Shoveler, and Raja lick their wounds in their favorite diner. Furious is unhappy about having to share credit with Amazing, never mind that he’s the only one who accomplished anything. He also snaps at the new server, who is unaffected by his rudeness. (Furious is also convinced that Hunt and Amazing are one and the same. Raja and Shoveler think he’s crazy.)

While Shoveler and Raja go home, the former to his wife and kids, the latter to where he lives with his mother (and we learn that his British accent is fake), Furious sees the Disco Boys, Casanova’s chief henchmen, and learns that Casanova is out.

The next morning, Furious reports to work at a junkyard, late. He’s tasked with junking an armored truck.

Amazing confronts Casanova, and while he’s ready for most of Casanova’s gadgets, he falls for a simple chloroform-delivering doodad that knocks him out. Furious sees that Amazing is captured, and he and the other two try to rescue him, but never get past the front door. As they recover in the diner, they agree that they need to find more superheroes and expand their roster. Furious also apologizes to the server, Monica, for being so scary, though she says he wasn’t scary at all. He also takes a shot at flirting with her, which almost works.

Shoveler introduces the team to Invisible Boy, who can only turn invisible when no one is looking at him. Furious and Raja are dubious, but Shoveler insists. The Spleen also more or less forces himself onto the team—his power is particularly brutal farts—and then they hold open tryouts at Shoveler’s house. None of the candidates are of much use—except for one late arrival, the Bowler, a young woman who has a possessed bowling ball. Her father was also known as the Bowler, but he was killed by one of the Disco Boys, and now his spirit inhabits his Goth daughter’s bowling ball. Except for Furious, everyone is happy to have her on the team.

They take a shot at Casanova, but while they succeed in damaging his car, they don’t really do anything of substance to him or the Disco Boys. They are also almost shot to death by the aforesaid Disco Boys, but they’re saved by the Sphinx, an older hero who offers to train them.

The training seems to go well at first, though Furious thinks it’s all nonsense, and he quits the team in a huff.

With Amazing out of action, criminals have come out of the woodwork, and Casanova gathers them at his headquarters. He plans to kill Amazing publicly and destroy Champion City.

Furious eats alone at the diner, where Monica convinces him to rejoin the team. He does so, after the team has stocked up on non-lethal weaponry from Dr. Heller, a brilliant scientist they met at the nursing home. (He was there to pick up chicks.)

Each team member says goodbye to their loved ones before they attack Casanova. Shoveler’s wife threatens to leave him, as she’s tired of him risking his life. Raja reveals to his mother that he’s a superhero. Furious says his goodbyes to Monica, who convinces him to be himself, to be Roy, not Mr. Furious. This, unfortunately, prompts a crisis in confidence, and Furious starts to wimp out.

Furious, Bowler, and Raja find Amazing, who is bitter and angry and too busy being obnoxious and condescending to give proper instructions on how to free him. As a result, Raja throws the wrong toggle, and accidentally kills Amazing rather horribly. The team panics, and even Sphinx suggests running away, but Shoveler gives a pep talk, and they renew their assault. Between their meagre superpowers and Heller’s weapons, they take care of the various criminals Casanova has gathered. Bowler kills the Disco Boy who killed her father (after which she says to her father’s spirit that now that his vengeance is fulfilled, she’s going back to grad school—that was the deal).

Unfortunately, Casanova has taken Monica hostage. This angers Furious to the point that he finally gives in to his rage and engages in fisticuffs with Casanova, eventually tossing him into the device that killed Amazing and will destroy Champion City. Bowler uses the bowling ball to destroy the machine, saving the city. The heroes stumble out of the now-destroyed headquarters, identifying themselves for the media, but unable to come up with a name for themselves. (Invisible Boy suggests “Super Dudes,” but that is soundly rejected by the others.) Heller is thrilled to see his team on TV after they’ve won the day.

“Eyes open, boy, I can’t protect you all the time!”

The League of Extraordinary GentlemenWritten by James Dale Robinson
Directed by Stephen Norrington
Produced by Don Murphy
Original release date: July 11, 2003

A tank drives through the streets of Victorian London, driven by a man in a mask who calls himself the Phantom leading a platoon of German troops. It crashes through a bank, destroying most of it, and making off with cash—and more. Shortly thereafter, the same troops kidnap scientists from Berlin. Tensions between Great Britain and Germany are heightened massively.

Sanderson Reed travels to Kenya to recruit Allan Quatermain to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a commission Quatermain initially refuses. The last time he fought for king and country, his son died. However, he accepts when the Phantom and his men attack the bar he’s drinking in and kills most of the occupants. Reed brings Quatermain to London and introduces him to M, the government operative who has brought the team together, as well as three of his teammates: Nemo, the captain of a technologically advanced ship, the Nautilus; Rodney Skinner (who stole the “invisible man” formula and now is, in fact, invisible unless he wears clothes and makeup), a thief; and Mina Harker, a chemist who is also a vampire. The Phantom is using his technologically advanced weapons to foment chaos and start a war, from which he will profit by selling these fancy-shmancy weapons.

The quartet go to recruit a fifth, Dorian Gray, an immortal. Like Quatermain, Gray is uninterested, but also like Quatermain, he decides to join after the Phantom’s men attack his home. The League is aided by Tom Sawyer, a Secret Service agent who was sent by the American government to help the League stop a world war. Gray doesn’t want him there, but Quatermain likes the cut of his jib, so he lets him in.

They travel to Paris to obtain their final recruit: Dr. Henry Jekyll, who is menacing Paris as Mr. Hyde when they arrive. Quatermain and Sawyer lure him to the Nautilus, and Hyde agrees to behave himself and work with the League in exchange for being allowed to return to London.

M’s information is that the Phantom is attending a meeting of arms dealers in Venice. The Nautilus zips there at top speed. Jekyll notices that a vial of his formula is missing, and he suspects that Skinner has stolen it. Gray and Harker flirt a bit, and Quatermain mentors Sawyer.

Skinner disappears, leaving it to the rest to stop the bombs that have been set underneath Venice. Sawyer drives Nemo’s automobile through Venice (even though the town’s walkways are nowhere near wide enough to accommodate a motor vehicle, especially not one as large as Nemo’s), while Quatermain goes after the Phantom and Harker takes care of the Phantom’s troops. Sawyer gets the car to the spot where the main bomb is, and Nemo is able to fire a rocket at the car’s spot, thus destroying the bomb and saving Venice, though the city itself is unrealistically badly damaged.

Gray then shoots Nemo’s first mate Ishmael (that’s what he said to call him, har har), revealing himself to be the traitor right before he steals the Nautilus’s pod. He’s not the only traitor: Quatermain tracks down the Phantom only to learn that it’s M.

M gets away, but Nemo finds a phonograph that Gray left behind, which explains that M formed the League in order to get samples of Harker’s blood, Jekyll’s formula, and Skinner’s skin, so he can replicate their powers. However, Skinner has also left a message behind: he snuck aboard M’s ship.

However, M only revealed the plan because Gray planted bombs all over the Nautilus, leaving it to sink. However, Jekyll changes into Hyde, whose strength is able to save the ship from sinking, allowing Nemo and his crew to effect repairs.

They follow the pod Gray stole to Mongolia, reuniting with Skinner, who has scouted the factory M has constructed. He’s not only making more of his fancy-pants weapons, but also trying to create soldiers who are invisible, immortal, vampiric, and super-strong.

Skinner plants bombs all around the factory, Nemo and Hyde rescue the scientists, and Quatermain and Sawyer go after M—whom Quatermain realizes is Professor James Moriarty, who somehow survived Reichenbach Falls.

Harker claims Gray for herself. Their fight is difficult, as both are immortal and both heal from all wounds instantly, but Gray was working for Moriarty in order to get his portrait back. Gray stabs Harker in the chest, giving him victory, but then instead of cutting her head off, he takes the sword out, thus allowing her to heal. She unwraps the painting and forces him to look at it, at which point he dies horribly.

Hyde and Nemo manage to free the scientists (and their families, held hostage against their continued work), but are menaced by one of Moriarty’s thugs, who takes an entire vial of Jekyll’s formula, turning him into a much bigger version of Hyde. However, Skinner’s dynamite goes off, and a wall falls on the uber-Hyde. Moriarty almost gets away with the formulae that would allow him to create his super-soldiers, but Sawyer makes a Quatermain-esque shot with his Winchester rifle and kills the bad guy, his formulae falling into the icy waters.

However, Quatermain doesn’t make it out alive, having been stabbed by Moriarty. He’s buried in Kenya, next to his son.

“Maybe you should put some shorts on or something, if you want to keep fighting evil today.”

Mystery Men‘s biggest problem was that it was released far too soon. It came out in 1999, before the 21st-century renaissance in superhero movies. If it had been released after the first X-Men movie—ideally, after the first several—then the audience would be primed for it. But satire works best when it’s about something in the public consciousness, and superhero movies—especially superhero team movies—weren’t there yet.

Which is too bad, as the movie is absolutely brilliant. It’s not quite perfect—several cut scenes should have been left in, particularly the one that explained why the Blue Raja doesn’t have any blue in his outfit, and the movie has about four too many characters—but it’s ultimately hilarious. Writer Neil Cuthbert—last seen in this rewatch as the scripter of The Return of Swamp Thing—sensibly eschews the bizarreness of Flaming Carrot Comics for a more direct parody, and it makes the movie more appealing. (Or it should have, anyhow.)

I like the fact that in this world, there really aren’t much by way of super-powers. Captain Amazing’s “powers” are entirely an artifact of his very expensive super-suit. The only real powers we see are pretty low-level—mostly it’s just fancier technology, like the aforementioned super-suit, Casanova’s gadgets, and Heller’s doodads.

I also like the fact that Furious is utterly, totally, thoroughly ineffective until the climax. Up until Monica is kidnapped, Furious not only doesn’t win a fight, he isn’t in any danger of winning a fight. His rage is obviously an act, and he has nothing else going for himself—something he himself realizes when Monica convinces him to be himself. The problem is, “himself” is a loser named Roy who is abused by his boss at the junkyard.

In general, the movie is perfectly cast, starting with Greg Kinnear and his sleazy chiseled jaw as Amazing. There are few better suited to playing a scummy, supercilious version of Superman, and Kinnear absolutely nails it. William H. Macy and Hank Azaria are never not wonderful, and they imbue Shoveler and Raja with tremendous heart, making them people, not just caricatures. Ben Stiller’s range could charitably be called limited, but Furious plays right into that tiny range perfectly, making this one of the few performances Stiller has given that doesn’t make me want to punch him in the throat. The only time he’s really irritating is when he and Jeaneane Garofalo’s Bowler argue, as those moments are endless and tiresome and poorly played. Garofalo is excellent otherwise, though.

The best performance in the movie, though, is Tom Waits. One of my favorite singer/songwriters, Waits is also a tremendous actor (his lack of any kind of award consideration for his role as Mr. Nick in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is, frankly, a crime against humanity), and his goofy enthusiasm as Heller is stupendous. I particularly like the fact that he insists that all his gadgets be non-lethal, and I only wish the alleged superheroes were more on board with that notion. (As it is, two of the bad guys are out-and-out killed by the heroes, which is irritatingly non-heroic behavior.)

Still, this is one of the great superhero movies of all time because it so delightfully subverts the genre. But it needed to come out after that genre became the hottest thing since sliced bread.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen needed a lot more help to be successful. Pretty much every change from the comic that was made for non-legal reasons were bad ones. The two legal ones—changing the Invisible Man and removing Fu Manchu—were both fine. The former was replaced with Tony Curran’s Skinner, who is one of the best characters in the movie, and the latter is a rather yucky stereotype that the movie was better off avoiding.

No, the issues were all the other changes: Making Harker a vampire, and also a secondary character—she’s more or less the main character, along with Quatermain, in the comics—is a disservice, and Peta Wilson—who was superb in the title role in the USA TV series La Femme Nikita—is undercooked here to a surprising degree for someone who’s supposed to be a vampire. Re-casting Dorian Gray as a bored immortal doesn’t entirely work, nor does having him be an unrepentant villain (it doesn’t help that Stuart Townsend doesn’t really have the chops to elevate the role beyond the don’t-hate-me-because-I’m-beautiful mode that is all the script provides). Tom Sawyer adds nothing to the movie—it was done so there’d be an American, which was pointless, especially since there’s no relationship between Mark Twain’s character and this person.

Worse, because Sawyer and Quatermain are thrown together for most of the movie, we’re denied the much more interesting pairing of Quatermain with Naseeruddin Shah’s regally dignified Nemo. (Their exchange on Nautilus is delightful: “I may have been overly rude, earlier, when I called you a pirate.” “And I may have been overly charitable when I said I wasn’t.” The movie needed more of that, not less.)

Sean Connery’s Quatermain is, at least, well played, as Connery does a beautiful job with both the character’s confident competence and his exhaustion and aging. Ditto Jason Flemyng, who absolutely nails both Jekyll’s tortured anguish and Hyde’s brutality, as well as the nobility buried beneath all that in both iterations. And, as stated above, Curran’s Skinner is spectacular.

The same cannot be said for our bad guy. I’m still waiting for Richard Roxburgh to give a good performance, and this sure as heck ain’t it. Although it is fitting that one of the worst antagonists in literature is played so poorly. (Seriously, “The Adventure of the Final Problem” is, quite possibly, the worst story in the English language, and I say that as a huge fan of pretty much all the other Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories about Sherlock Holmes. It boggles my mind that so many people insist on using Moriarty when telling a Holmes story, as he’s a minor, irrelevant character, unconvincingly crowbarred into the canon to attempt to provide a “worthy” opponent to kill Holmes, at which Conan Doyle failed on every possible level, both artistically and story-wise, as he wound up being forced to bring Holmes back. Moriarty isn’t a character, he’s a plot device, and not a very good one, and every use of him automatically diminishes the work he appears in.)

But the biggest problem with LEG is that the action scenes are big and obnoxious and endless and boring and just too much. They’re overstuffed and overlong, and not that interesting. Rather than move the film along, they grind the story to a halt so we can have multiple gunshots, tons of gratuitous destruction (they pretty much demolish Venice), an endless supply of redshirt thugs to surround Moriarty and bats to surround Harker, and it’s a mess. The only fight that actually works in the entire movie is the insta-healing duel between Gray and Harker. (Gray’s bemused lament, “We’ll be at this all day” is pretty much the only good line reading Townsend provides.)

The second biggest problem is that there is very little sense of fun in this movie, and pretty much all of it comes from Curran’s snarky line readings as Skinner. This should be a romp, a fun teaming of literary giants, but not enough of the original characters shine through to provide that, and the movie winds up falling flat because of it.

Both these attempts to do a team superhero movie failed with audiences, but only one was a justifiable failure. One hopes that the rumored reboot of LEG will do better.

Next week, we’ll look at two single-hero films of the 1990s, Steel and Spawn.

Keith R.A. DeCandido hopes everyone had a wonderful holiday, and looks forward to continuing this rewatch into 2018. He also urges folks to check out his Patreon, where you can get cat photos, regular TV and movie reviews (he’s reviewed Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., MacGyver, and The Librarians), excerpts from his upcoming fiction works, exclusive original vignettes featuring his original characters, and more niftiness.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/12/29/were-not-your-classic-heroes-mystery-men-and-league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen/feed/68“Smokin’!” — The Mask and Son of the Maskhttps://www.tor.com/2017/12/15/smokin-the-mask-and-son-of-the-mask/
https://www.tor.com/2017/12/15/smokin-the-mask-and-son-of-the-mask/#commentsFri, 15 Dec 2017 17:00:35 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=322744The Mask started out as a concept Mike Richardson came up with for a sketch in APA-5, an amateur press fanzine Richardson was involved with in 1985. Later on, Richardson formed Dark Horse Comics, and gave the concept to Mark Badger, who did a feature called The Masque in the anthology comic Dark Horse Presents. […]]]>

The Mask started out as a concept Mike Richardson came up with for a sketch in APA-5, an amateur press fanzine Richardson was involved with in 1985. Later on, Richardson formed Dark Horse Comics, and gave the concept to Mark Badger, who did a feature called The Masque in the anthology comic Dark Horse Presents. The more familiar version—with the big green head, the massive teeth, and the general mode of chaos—debuted in Mayhem in 1989, eventually getting his own four-issue miniseries, the first of several, in 1991, which continued throughout the 1990s.

They were popular enough to become part of Dark Horse Entertainment’s stable of films, for which it was one of their biggest hits.

It helped that The Mask starred Jim Carrey at the height of his popularity. Starting out as a standup comic, Carrey’s breakout was on the Wayans brothers’ groundbreaking sketch comedy show In Living Color. 1994 was the year he officially became a movie star, as he had three hits over the course of the calendar year—The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. On top of that, the movie launched the acting career of model Cameron Diaz.

An animated series based on the movie (albeit with some changes) debuted the following year, starring Rob Paulsen in the title role. It lasted for three seasons on CBS and the Cartoon Network.

However, it took until 2005 for a sequel to happen. One was planned with Carrey, but after doing Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, he decided that doing sequels was a bad idea. He declined the offer to do The Mask II, despite director Chuck Russell’s interest in a sequel, and despite Nintendo Power magazine running a contest for a reader to have a walk-on in that sequel. The “winner” of the contest wound up with a cash settlement and an apology.

The sequel was finally made eleven years later starring Jaime Kennedy, with Ben Stein’s Professor Neuman being the only character common to both. Where The Mask was one of the most successful comic book movies of its era, Son of the Mask, er, wasn’t.

“No, those pajamas are impossible—this really happened.”

The MaskWritten by Michael Fallon and Mark Verheiden and Mike Webb
Directed by Charles Russell
Produced by Bob Engleman
Original release date: July 29, 1994

A diver off the coast of Edge City finds a literal treasure chest, but a pipe from a nearby boat comes loose and pins the diver right after he breaks into the chained and locked chest. The contents of the chest consist solely of a green wooden mask, which floats to the surface.

We then look in on Stanley Ipkiss, a nebbish bank clerk. He tries to ask a coworker out on a date—he got tickets to a hot concert—but she makes excuses involving her best friend, and Ipkiss says he’s fine with her going with her friend rather than him.

His best friend and fellow clerk Charlie Schumaker calls him a chump, and then invites him to the Coco Bongo Club on a double date with two women he knows. Ipkiss then gets to help a beautiful woman named Tina Carlyle, who comes in ostensibly to open an account, but truly to case the joint for her boyfriend, a criminal named Dorian Tyrell. Tyrell is attempting to get out from under the thumb of Edge City’s biggest crime boss, Niko, and robbing the bank will help with that.

Ipkiss goes to pick up his car from the mechanic where he was getting an oil change, only to be told that there are several expensive repairs needed. They give him a loaner, a beat-up old monstrosity that Ipkiss chugs and puffs his way to Coco Bongo in. Unfortunately, there’s a mixup at the door, and only Schumaker and the two women make it inside, with Ipkiss winding up on the wrong side of the rope. Then the bouncers toss him onto the street into a puddle, then a car splashes water on him. Carlyle sees him as she enters the club, and he tries to play it cool while covered in rain water and having the valet show up with his beater of a car.

The car dies on a bridge, and Ipkiss is completely frustrated. He sees what he thinks is a body in the river, but it turns out to be a pile of junk that happens to be shaped like a body. The “face” is the green mask from the opening, and Ipkiss decides to take it home.

After a particularly unpleasant conversation with his landlady, Ipkiss puts on some Tex Avery cartoons in his VCR (kids, ask your parents what that is) and plays with his dog Milo. Eventually, he winds up putting the mask on—

—at which point his head turns trapezoidal and bald, his eyes and teeth get huge, and he gains the ability to suspend all laws of physics. He torments his landlady (who shoots him with a shotgun to no avail, as he bounces around the hallway), turns the table on some muggers by making them balloon animals, one of which is a working Tommy gun, and he gets his revenge on the mechanics who screwed him, also.

The next morning, Ipkiss finds himself in bed, and he almost convinces himself that it was all a dream. Then Detective Mitch Kellaway knocks on his door asking if he knows anything about the ruckus with his landlady. Ipkiss says he didn’t hear anything, which makes Kellaway suspicious.

At the bank, Ipkiss is interviewed by Peggy Brandt, a newspaper reporter who is trying to move out of the advice-column ghetto into investigative reporting. Brandt flirts a bit with Ipkiss.

That night, Ipkiss dreams that the conversation outside the Coco Bongo with Carlyle went more smoothly—at least until Carlyle licks his ear, at which point he realizes that Milo is licking his ear. Ipkiss decides to put on the mask and go see Carlyle perform at the club. But the Mask needs cash to get in, so he robs the bank—thus short-circuiting Tyrell’s attempt to do so. The cops arrive and shoot at the would-be robbers, killing one of them.

The Mask then goes to the club, where he goes full Tex Avery on Carlyle as she does her best Jessica Rabbit impersonation. Then, after she finishes her number, the Mask changes the band into a swing band and he and Carlyle dance insanely.

Tyrell’s thugs recognize the Mask as the guy who robbed the bank before they could, and Tyrell clears the club and tries (and utterly fails) to kill the Mask, who confuses them with a death act, and accepting an Oscar in front of a crowd. The cops also show up, led by Kellaway, and a piece of the Mask’s zoot suit gets ripped off. When it falls to the floor, it changes back to a piece of Ipkiss’s rather distinctively hideous pajamas.

Kellaway is convinced that Ipkiss is the Mask because of that piece of cloth, since there’s no way that two people could own those PJs.

Ipkiss consults Professor Neuman, who theorizes that the mask is of Scandanavian origin and represents Loki, the god of mischief. He’s a night god, so the mask only works at night. (Ipkiss realizes this belatedly when he tries to prove the mask’s power to Neuman by putting it on, but nothing happens in the daytime.)

Carlyle comes to the bank—which is trying to recover from the robbery—and tells Ipkiss that she’d like to see the Mask again. Ipkiss says he knows him and can arrange a meeting—which he does, at sunset. However, Kellaway is also waiting for him, and a confrontation ensues. Unforutnately for Kellaway, the Mask is able to force the SWAT team and the uniformed officers he brought to bring him down to join him in a rousing rendition of “Cuban Pete.”

Ipkiss escapes with help from Brandt—who then betrays him to Tyrell for the $50,000 reward the criminal promised to anyone who brought him Ipkiss. (“I really need to keep my condo,” Brandt says apologetically.) Tyrell takes the mask for himself and then they dump Ipkiss on Kellaway, who arrests him.

With help from Milo, who follows Ipkiss to the jail and is able to play “fetch the keys” to get the cell keys from the sleeping guard, Ipkiss escapes. Carlyle visited him in jail, and knows he’s the Mask, and plans to get out of town—but Tyrell gets her first. Tyrell is planning to blow up the Coco Bongo after stealing the money for the charity event that the club is hosting.

Ipkiss, Milo, Kellaway, Carlyle, and Tyrell all converge on the club, where the mayor and Niko (who actually owns the club) are in attendance. Niko tries to kill Tyrell, but while he wears the mask, he’s impossible to kill, and Tyrell shoots him with his own bullets, which he “fires” from his mouth.

Carlyle is tied to a post next to the dynamite Tyrell’s going to blow up the club with. She insists on one last kiss from Tyrell himself, not the mask, and Tyrell stupidly takes the mask off—which Carlyle then kicks across the club, where Milo catches it. The dog gets to wear the mask for a bit, tormenting Tyrell’s thugs, before Ipkiss gets it back and proceeds to take care of Tyrell by flushing him down the fountain (after using paint to create a flushing lever next to the fountain).

The Mask also swallows the dynamite, which explodes harmlessly in his belly.

The day is saved, and Ipkiss removes the mask. He and Carlyle leave. Kellaway tries to arrest him as being the Mask, but the mayor himself says he saw that Tyrell was the Mask.

The next morning, Ipkiss throws the mask into the river and finally gets to kiss Carlyle (all previous attempts were interrupted). Both Milo and Schumaker jump into the water after the mask.

“I’m the god of friggin mischief, what did you expect?”

Son of the MaskWritten by Lance Khazei
Directed by Lawrence Guterman
Produced by Erica Huggins & Scott Kroopf
Original release date: July 11, 2012

Professor Neuman is giving a tour of a museum in Edge City, and he comes to the Hall of Norse Mythology, which includes the mask from the first movie. Loki is part of the tour, and he wants his mask back—except it turns out that what they have on display is a replica made in Taiwan. Loki is furious, and he attacks Neuman (removing his face and placing it in the display—Neuman blandly says he doesn’t like it there and he suffers from vertigo) and the museum guards.

The mask itself winds up washing up on the shore of a river in Fringe City, where it’s found by Otis, a dog belonging to Tim Avery and his wife Tonya. Avery works for a big animation company as a greeter in a turtle suit, but he has aspirations to be an animator himself some day. The first time he gets to pitch to the boss, it crashes and burns, but he’s encouraged to try again.

Avery attends the company Hallowe’en party, but the mask he wanted to wear was trashed by Otis, so he grabs the cheap wooden mask the dog found, ha ha. He puts it on when he arrives, and it turns his face green, his hair plastic, and he gains the usual ability to suspend all laws of physics to silly effect.

After livening up the party with a scattershot, over-the-top, spectacularly messy and confusing rendition of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” he goes home and makes love to Tonya while still wearing the mask. Afterward, his boss gets an idea for a new animated series from Avery’s costume, and he gets promoted to work on it as an animator, while Tonya announces she’s pregnant. Meanwhile, Otis has buried the mask behind the house.

Because Avery was wearing the mask, the boy they have nine months later, Alvey, has all the powers of the mask without having to actually wear the fershlugginer thing. There are hints of it here and there that neither of the Averys quite notice, or only see out of the corner of their eye. (The first hint was Tonya’s morning sickness, when she barfed bubbles instead of puke.)

The same week that Avery has to work up a presentation to the network about their new show, Tonya is sent to New York for a business meeting, leaving Avery alone with Alvey.

Meanwhile, Odin is pissed off that Loki hasn’t retrieved his mask yet, and he’s even more pissed off to learn that a child has been born of the mask. He angrily sends Loki to get the damn mask back before it causes more trouble. Loki finds all the babies that were born around the same time as Alvey and checks each house under various guises (vacuum cleaner salesperson, delivery guy, plumber, etc.).

By the time he makes it to the Avery house, Avery himself is at wits’ end. Alvey has driven him insane with crying, insane behavior, literally bouncing off the walls, and peeing in four directions at once while having his diaper changed. To add insult to injury, having watched “One Froggy Evening” when Avery placed him in front of the TV to keep him occupied while he works, Alvey decides to follow the example of Michigan J. Frog, and not do any of his tricks in front of other people, whether the neighbor or Loki, which just makes Avery crazier.

Eventually, Loki figures out that Alvey is the right infant when Avery tries to take him to the doctor and he pukes green gloop all over the car. Loki chases him down, but Alvey protects his old man. Just as Loki’s about to finally grab him, Odin gets fed up with how long Loki’s taking, and removes the god’s powers.

Meanwhile, Otis—who had his own room in the house until Alvey was born, at which point he was relegated to a doghouse in the back yard—digs up the mask and puts it on. Emboldened and empowered, he tries to get revenge on Alvey, and the two have a war of looney-ness.

Avery is completely worn out at this point, and he blows the presentation to the network, which gets him fired. Loki manages to cobble together a summoning spell to explain to Odin that he found the kid, but he needs his powers to get the mask back. Odin agrees, but he only has a few hours. So Loki kidnaps Alvey, transforming the Averys’ nosy neighbor’s head into a big nose (get it??????) along the way.

Tonya returns home from her business trip to find the house trashed, her son kidnapped, and her neighbor’s head turned into a big nose. Avery manages to get the mask off Otis and they bring it to meet with Loki. Unfortunately, Loki has grown rather fond of Alvey—they’re a lot alike—and the god of mischief refuses to give the kid back. Avery puts the mask on, and another looney battle ensues before Odin’s time runs out. Odin himself shows up and disowns Loki as a failure, but then Avery actually pleads the case for Loki. Even though Alvey has driven him batshit (and cost him his job), he’s still his son and he loves him, and Odin should feel the same about Loki. Avery also gives the mask back.

Odin and Loki bugger off with the mask, Avery gets his job back by pitching an animated series about a dog and a baby who both have super-powers and fight each other, and Tonya announces that she’s pregnant again.

“Somebody stop me!”

Watching these two movies back to back is a wonderful exercise in two different attempts at the same thing. In both cases, the filmmakers chose a more light-hearted approach to the source material, as The Mask in comic book form was more horror and dark humor than goofy comedy.

But one is successful, and one isn’t, because one actually remembers to tell its story well, while the other is a scattershot mess.

Both movies are doing, basically, a live-action Merrie Melodie, as the influence of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones is pretty much worn on each movie’s proverbial sleeve. (Both Ipkiss and Alvey watch the inspirational cartoons in question, just to make it obvious.) But the best animated shorts actually have a coherent plot structure, and the themes flow nicely from A to B to C. The Mask gets this, while Son is all over the damn place.

The perfect example is the first musical set piece in each. In The Mask we go from Carlyle’s slow, seductive torch song to a hoppin’ swing number. It’s a natural musical progression, and one that shows off the Mask’s lunacy, and Ipkiss’s desire for Carlyle, nicely.

By contrast, the schizophrenic rendition of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” is a disaster, jump-cutting to a different tone every few seconds, showing no sense of progression or sense, and just bombarding the viewer with different tempos and costumes all at once without rhyme or reason.

It doesn’t help that Jaime Kennedy is a total failure as the Mask. As the put-upon Avery, he’s adequate at best, but as the Mask, he’s a disaster. Instead of the id-let-loose that Jim Carrey does so magnificently, Kennedy just comes across as a sleazy weirdo who happens to have a green face. (It almost feels like he’s doing a really bad impersonation of Lorne from Angel.) Kennedy isn’t really built to be a leading man anyhow, as he’s much better suited to the snotty sidekick role like his iconic Scream character Randy.

Carrey is much more fun. This is the perfect role for him, combining his ability to play nebbish white guys (done to best effect in The Truman Show) with his rubber-faced lunacy. Carrey’s tendency to be over the top can get wearisome (see either of his other 1994 hits, not to mention his god-awful Riddler in Batman Forever), but each turn as the Mask is brief enough here not to wear out its welcome.

He has a mostly strong supporting cast, too. The late Richard Jeni is utterly superfluous as Schumaker, and while Peter Greene does fine as Tyrell (he’s made a career out of playing this type of gangster), his be-masked version of himself falls completely flat (you know it’s bad when the dog does a better job as the Mask than you). But everyone else is superb, from the radiant Cameron Diaz, a very strong start to her acting career (and showing her comedic skills, particularly in the dream sequence where she grabs Carrey’s head and starts lapping his ear caninely), to the delightful Amy Yasbeck to Peter Riegart, who completely steals the show as the put-upon Kellaway. Riegart’s acid commentary on the proceedings make the movie, a down-to-earth contrast to Carrey’s craziness.

Kennedy is not nearly so well supported. Traylor Howard doesn’t do anything wrong as Tonya, but her performance doesn’t particularly stand out, either. Steven Wright’s Boston monotone usually can be counted on to provide a deadpan delight, but here he just sounds like someone who can’t read his lines right, as neither script nor director takes advantage of Wright’s comic talents. Kal Penn is utterly wasted. Alan Cumming is having fun as Loki, at least, but at times he feels like he’s trying too hard. And Bob Hoskins gives what may be the worst performance of his career as Odin (let’s just say that Sir Anthony Hopkins and Ian McShane have nothing to worry about).

But the biggest problem with Son is that the bulk of the story is the zany antics of a super-powered infant, occasionally opposed by a super-powered dog. This is good fodder for a ten-minute cartoon short, but wears thin in a 94-minute movie. The Mask gave us an actual story with Ipkiss’s character progression; Son tries that with Avery’s own tribulations, but Kennedy isn’t up to the challenge, and neither is the script, which can’t maintain the right balance between plot and silliness that the first movie so deftly tap-danced through. Too much of the movie is focused on Alvey’s antics, and since it’s live action, they’re limited by the facial expressions of Liam and Ryan Falconer, the twins who play the role, and there’s only so much they can do—they’re neither of them Jim Carrey, that’s for sure. (I do like the fact that the dogs in the two movies are named Milo and Otis…)

In the end, The Mask is rightly remembered as the movie that launched one excellent career (Diaz) and solidified another’s (Carrey). Son of the Mask, if it’s remembered at all, it’s as Jaime Kennedy’s sixteenth minute.

Next week, we’ll look at two teams adapted into film form, Mystery Men and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Keith R.A. DeCandido urges folks to check out his Patreon, where you can get cat photos, regular TV and movie reviews, excerpts from his upcoming fiction works, exclusive original vignettes featuring his original characters, and more niftiness.

The Bat-signal: Batman and Robin are invited by Dr. Hugo Strange to witness the testing of a new crimefighting tool: the Evil Extractor. En route, Batman stops by the Gotham State Penitentiary to visit Catwoman, giving her a gift of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s love poetry. Their attempt to kiss through the bars is interrupted (of course) by Robin.

They arrive at Strange’s demonstration. He and his assistant, Dr. Harleen Quinzel, set up the extractor with Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Egghead, and Mr. Freeze. (At one point Quinzel and Joker exchange a wink. This may or may not be important later.)

Also present is Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent, whom Batman “meets” for the first time (though he and Bruce Wayne are good friends). Given Batman’s track record in prosecuting cases himself, the presence of a decent DA is probably a relief to everyone.

However, the repository for the evil that is extracted from the five subjects explodes and hits Dent on the left side of his body (Batman manages to cover his right side with his cape). Dent is transformed into a creature of evil called Two-Face, and over the opening credits, we see several of Batman and Robin’s encounters with Two-Face over the years.

Once the credits are done, we see Dent in a plastic surgeon’s bed, having had his face operated on to restore his good looks. Dent is made an assistant to the assistant district attorney, and he says he hopes to win back the people’s trust.

King Tut goes on a rampage, stealing a biplane owned by a famous Egyptologist, and then he goes after a double-decker tour bus owned by the Nile Bus Company—and Alfred and Harriet are attending a soiree on that bus! Batman and Robin swing into action and fisticuffs ensue. The Dynamic Duo defeat the Tutlings, but Tut himself gets them with robot asps. He traps them in canopic jars and puts them in a construction site’s foundation. But even as the cement pours onto them, they escape via the bat boot jets, and then when they catch up to Tut, he gets conked on the head, reverting him to Professor McElroy of Yale University.

O’Hara interrogates Tut, but his dual identity confuses the matter. Lucille Diamond, public defender, comes in, ending the questioning. Later in court, Diamond uses O’Hara’s rather violent interrogation methods against him. However, McElroy confesses under Dent’s questioning, and Tut goes to jail.

Dent and Bruce Wayne share a celebratory drink, leaving Dick to feel like a third wheel. Dent mentions a charity event for underprivileged twins at the Winning Pair Casino. However, Bruce and Dick are called away to the bat-phone—there’s a package for Batman at Gordon’s office, which contains a clue indicating that Bookworm is going to steal rare editions of A Tale of Two Cities, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and The Man in the Iron Mask. Batman and Robin arrive in time to stop them, and fisticuffs ensue. As Bookworm and his henchmen are taken away, Bookworm is genuinely surprised that the Dynamic Duo received a clue to his robbery. In addition, the books are missing, even though the robbery was foiled.

Batman deduces that, while all the recent crimes fit the mode of the villains in question, they also had a duality theme—biplane, double-decker bus, the themes of the three books—and that indicates Two-Face. But Dent is still working hard as the assistant to the assistant DA.

They check out Two-Face’s last known hideout, an abandoned sign factory on Gemini Drive, where they see Two-Face and his twin henchmen—but the place is too dark to see the “good” side of his face. They assume that one of Dent’s enemies—he made plenty as a DA—is setting him up.

Two-Face has them trapped, but the villain flips his coin, and it comes up the non-scarred side, so they live. Robin insists that Dent has reverted to his villainous persona, but Batman believes in his friend. Batman tells Robin to go to his room, but Robin instead decides to investigate on his own.

Diamond is also representing Catwoman, who is grumpy because Batman has been so focused on the Two-Face thing that he missed their “date.” She uses one of her cats to scratch Diamond and then switches outfits with her.

Strange, embittered because they fired him after the accident with the extractor, is kidnapped by Two-Face and told to build a new extractor.

Robin follows Dent, and only to be ambushed and knocked out. When he awakens, he sees Two-Face—still keeping his “good” side hidden—who has Strange use the new improved evil extractor to turn Robin into a Two-Face of his own.

Alfred discovers that Robin’s missing and activates the bat-homing beacon in his utility belt and gives Batman the coordinates. Batman manages to subdue him and bring him back to the Batcave. Robin goes back and forth between being himself and being evil. Once Batman finds an antidote and gives it to Robin, the Boy Wonder explains that he thinks Dent is being forced to work for this new Two-Face. They head to the Winning Pair Casino, only to be ambushed by Two-Face—who is also Dent. It turns out that he’s been legitimately trying to reform, but like Robin when he was exposed to the evil from the extractor, his personality split.

Two-Face ties the Dynamic Duo to a big coin and he unmasks Batman. Two-Face is gleeful at learning Batman’s secret ID, and Dent feels betrayed that his best friend never told him his secret. Two-Face gathers Joker, Penguin, Clock King, Riddler, Egghead, Shame, and Catwoman for an auction to see who gets to learn Batman’s identity. Catwoman tries to outbid the others with a five million dollar bid. (Why she needed a public defender when she had five million bucks laying around is left as an exercise for the viewer.) The rest of them, at Joker’s urging, pool their cash to make a ten million dollar bid that wins the day.

However, Batman and Robin manage to escape before the bad guys can unmask them. Fisticuffs ensue, and with Catwoman’s help, the Dynamic Duo are triumphant. But Two-Face had something else in mind: while the villains bid, the extractor pulls out a ton of their evil. Two-Face uses that evil to turn the entirety of Gotham City into Two-Faces, spraying it over the city in the biplane that Tut stole.

The Dynamic Duo shoot down the biplane, and it crashes in Lorenzo’s Oil Factory. Batman insists on stopping Two-Face alone due to his long friendship with Dent. He manages to convince Dent to fight Two-Face, and he does so, defeating the evil within him.

Using the batwing, our heroes cure the rest of the city as well.

Three months later, Dent is let out of prison in order to host a charity bachelor auction. The first eligible bachelor is Batman—and Catwoman starts the bidding…

Fetch the Bat-shark-repellant! Surprisingly low on bat-gadgets this time. The bat-computer does its usual work, of course, and the bat boot jets save our heroes’ bacon on two occasions. Plus we have the bat-homing beacon in Robin’s utility belt and the batwing.

Holy #@!%$, Batman! We have “Holy Romeo and Juliet” when Batman is visiting Catwoman in jail; “Holy hieroglyphics” when Batman reveals why King Tut stole a biplane; “Holy hypodermic” when they’re hit with poisonous asps; “Holy entrails” when Batman explains what canopic jars are for (ewwwwwwwwwww); “Holy Amelia Earhart” when Gordon reveals that the biplane Tut stole is missing (nice to see Batman is educating him about great aviators even when they’re women); “Holy plagiarism” when they realize that Bookworm is back; “Holy overdue book!” when they arrive at the Gotham Public Library; “Holy English lit!” after Batman reels off the titles Bookworm is after in the library; “Holy hideosity” (which isn’t actually a word) when they discover that Two-Face is back; “Holy blind spot” when Batman refuses to listen when Robin insists that Dent is responsible for Two-Face’s rampage; “Holy resurrection” when Robin stumbles across the evil extractor; “Holy billiards” when Batman discovers blue chalk residue on Robin’s uniform; “Holy compaction” (really?) when they’re about to be crushed by giant pool balls; “Holy half-dollar” when they’re tied to a giant coin; “Holy Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” when Dent reveals that he’s still Two-Face; “Holy indecent exposure” when Two-Face rips off the cowl; “Holy hairpin turn” when Two-Face avoids the mini Bat-zooka; “Holy amnesia” when Dick realizes that Dent doesn’t remember that Batman and Robin are really Bruce and Dick; and finally, for some reason, “Holy Hugh Hefner” when Catwoman bids on Batman.

Gotham City’s finest. Gordon and O’Hara make a show of discussing how they’d deal with Tut before they bow to reality and activate the bat-signal. When they interrogate Tut, O’Hara keeps clubbing him on the head to turn him from Professor McElroy back into Tut (with Tut clubbing himself on head to change himself back to McElroy). O’Hara is dinged for this on the stand by Diamond when Tut is on trial, as giving suspects repeated cranial trauma during interrogation is frowned upon in these enlightened times. Later, after he’s restored from being Two-Faced, O’Hara says he feels like he’s been on a bender, which pretty much confirms what we always believed about the chief…

No sex, please, we’re superheroes. Batman visits Catwoman in jail, and they almost kiss before Robin interrupts. At the end, Catwoman bids on Batman as an eligible bachelor, hubba hubba.

Special Guest Villains. The main villain is right there in the title: William Shatner as Harvey Dent/Two-Face, with Julie Newmar back as Catwoman. Wally Wingert absolutely nails both Victor Buono and Frank Gorshin’s inflections when voicing both King Tut and the Riddler, while Jeff Bergman does a fine job with Joker and Bookworm, William Salyers remains mediocre as the Penguin, and Jim Ward is kinda meh as Hugo Strange. Egghead, Shame, Mr. Freeze (looking like a mix of Otto Preminger and Eli Wallach), and Clock King show up for silent cameos as well.

Oh, and Sirena Irwin does the voice of Quinzel; in the Blu-Ray edition, there’s a scene of her breaking Joker out of jail in her Harley Quinn persona.

Na-na na-na na-na na-na na.

“I always knew you’d make an asp of yourself, Bat-Boob!”

A classic King Tut insult

Trivial matters: At the very end are two title cards dedicating the film to Adam West, the first the dedication, the second saying, “Rest well, Bright Knight.”

This film was discussed on The Batcave Podcast by John S. Drew, along with Dan Greenfield of 13th Dimension, Billy Flynn of Geek Radio Daily, and Ben Bentley of 66batman.com.

In addition to West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar, one other alumnus from Batman ’66 provides a voice: Lee Meriwether, who played Catwoman in the feature film and Lisa Carson in “King Tut’s Coup”/”Batman’s Waterloo,” plays Lucilee Diamond. (It’s unknown whether that name was a tribute to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” a song Shatner famously recorded a hilariously terrible version of for the 1988 Golden Throats album.) In tribute to Meriwether’s role in the film, Catwoman escapes prison by switching clothes with Diamond, thus putting Meriwether’s character in the outfit. She admires herself in the mirror when she wakes up in the costume.

Despite rumors to the contrary, this movie does not use Harlan Ellison’s unproduced story treatment for the ’66 Batman with Two-Face as its basis. That story was adapted by the late Len Wein and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez into a comic book in 2015.

Harvey Dent is animated to look like Shatner did in 1966.

Although the Gotham Public Library is robbed by Bookworm, neither Batgirl nor Barbara Gordon appears in the movie, which seems like a missed opportunity. As with the previous animated film, it’s possible they decided not to re-cast the role following Yvonne Craig’s death in 2015.

The character of Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn was created 25 years after Batman 66 for Batman: The Animated Series, and then later brought into the comics, and now she’s brought into this little corner of the Bat-verse as well.

Pow! Biff! Zowie! “You know what they say: if you can’t kill them in a horrible lab experiment, join them!” A fitting finale to Adam West’s storied career, you couldn’t have asked for a better last role than getting to play the role that made him both famous and infamous one last time. West sounds good, too. Looks like Warner spent the extra money to do post-production work to get rid of the tremors in West’s voice.

As an added bonus, West gets to act alongside William Shatner, 53 years after the first time, and five decades after both got a reputation for overacting and being typecast.

And Two-Face is one of those villains that you can understand why they never used him in the TV show, but you’re both sorry and not sorry they didn’t. Certainly, the (awful) Tommy Lee Jones interpretation of Two-Face we saw in Batman Forever might have worked in Batman ’66. This version sorta kinda works, too. It borrows from the comics—in the character’s various appearances in the 1940s, he became Two-Face, menaced Batman and Robin, got plastic surgery to restore his face, but then reverted back to Two-Face eventually. (Frank Miller and Klaus Janson riffed on that in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as well.)

Still, I’m iffy about the alteration to Two-Face’s origin. Almost every version has retained the notion that Dent was scarred as part of his prosecutorial duties. Here, he’s just observing a procedure. And the whole evil extraction thing is—well, actually, perfectly in line with some of the other bits of technological nonsense in this iteration of Batman, so I guess I’m okay with that. But it still doesn’t quite feel right.

Everything else, though, is the same self-aware nostalgia-fest as The Return of the Caped Crusaders was. Sometimes that’s part of the problem—they hang an even bigger lantern on the GCPD’s incompetence, which is a bit much. Having said that, I welcome the return of Harriet’s nudge-nudge-wink-winking to Alfred because she’s sure that Bruce and Dick go off to disappear and shag endlessly.

And while it’s great to hear Lee Meriwether join the party, and the joke with her character in the Catwoman costume lands beautifully, Julie Newmar’s presence feels perfunctory. Scripters Michael Jelenic and James Tucker don’t come up with a good reason to have Catwoman in the story, and it feels like she’s only there because Newmar’s still alive and they don’t want to waste the shot.

Shatner himself does superbly as Dent—less so as Two-Face, as the growl he puts on is not nearly as menacing or interesting as he’d like it to be. But it’s a fun, solid performance.

Still, this is fun, and with West’s death, we’re unlikely to get any new ones. It truly closes the book on a delightfully goofy era of Bat-stories. It is, if nothing else, a fitting ending to pair West and Shatner up for the finale. (I just wish there’d been a character named Alexander…)

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/12/12/holy-rewatch-batman-extra-batman-vs-two-face/feed/17“I am the law!”—Judge Dredd (1995) and Dredd (2012)https://www.tor.com/2017/12/08/i-am-the-law-judge-dredd-1995-and-dredd-2012/
https://www.tor.com/2017/12/08/i-am-the-law-judge-dredd-1995-and-dredd-2012/#commentsFri, 08 Dec 2017 16:10:08 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=320984Judge Dredd first started appearing in the British comics magazine 2000 A.D. in 1977. That magazine has, over the years, featured work by such British superstar comics creators as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Brian Bolland, Grant Morrison, and Pat Mills and John Wagner. At Mills’s urging (he was editor at the time), Wagner created Dredd, […]]]>

Judge Dredd first started appearing in the British comics magazine 2000 A.D. in 1977. That magazine has, over the years, featured work by such British superstar comics creators as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Brian Bolland, Grant Morrison, and Pat Mills and John Wagner. At Mills’s urging (he was editor at the time), Wagner created Dredd, along with artist Carlos Ezquerra, who designed his iconic outfit.

The dystopian future world of Judge Dredd is the most popular feature to come from 2000 A.D., and in 1990 it was spun off into Judge Dredd Megazine, which is still being published today. And twice, Dredd has been adapted into a feature film.

In 1995, Sylvester Stallone starred in Judge Dredd, which seemed a good fit at first, especially since Stallone has the perfect jaw for the role, still identifiable even in Dredd’s big-ass helmet. In the 1990s, Stallone had pretty much finished the Rocky and Rambo series (though he’d come back to both in the 21st century), and he was in search of a good second act. Judge Dredd was in the same throw-it-against-the-wall pile he was doing in the 1990s along with Oscar, Stop or My Mom Will Shoot!, Assassins, Daylight, Demolition Man, The Specialist, Cop Land, and so on. (And yes, some of those were actually decent movies, but I can safely say the only one I remember fondly is Demolition Man.)

Unfortunately, the film was beset with difficulties, mostly the tension between Stallone and director Danny Cannon, as the former saw it as an action-comedy, while the latter viewed it as a dark satire. The film found no audience in the U.S., though it did decently overseas, not aided by the storyline breaking one of the cardinal rules of the comic strip, which is that Dredd’s face is never seen.

By 2012, Stallone’s movie was far enough in the past that another shot could be taken, this time with genre Renaissance man Karl Urban in the role. Urban kept the helmet on throughout the film, which automatically made the movie more favorable to the fans of the comic, while screenwriter Alex Garland turned to the comics for specific inspiration for his screenplay.

However, the 2012 movie also failed to find an audience in theatres, though it has performed better on home video platforms, and there are rumblings of a sequel.

“I knew you were going to say that”

Judge DreddWritten by Michael De Luca and William Wisher Jr. and Steven E. de Souza
Directed by Danny Cannon
Produced by Charles Lippincott and Beau E.L. Marks
Original release date: June 30, 1995

In the future, much of the planet has been left barely habitable. Most of the population lives in Mega Cities. In Mega City I, which is much of the northeast coast, law is enforced by judges, who serve as cops, prosecutors, and judges all at the same time. One of the finest is Joseph Dredd, who helps Judge Hershey and a rookie judge stop a block war, though the rookie is killed. Dredd is emotionless, interested only in enforcing the law.

After the block war is ended, with all the perpetrators sentenced to death, Dredd arrests Fergie, a thief and hacker who had just been paroled, and was hiding from the block war in a drone. Tampering with the drone while on parole is a five-year jail sentence.

Vartis Hammond is a reporter who is on the verge of exposing corruption among the judges. He and his boss are killed by a judge wearing Dredd’s badge and using Dredd’s gun. (Judges’ weapons have biometrics that enable them only to be used by the judge it’s issued to.)

Dredd is put on trial, with Hershey defending him. The chief justice, Fargo, who is Dredd’s mentor, doesn’t want to believe that Dredd would commit homicide, but the evidence is overwhelming. However, when a judge retires, he goes on “the long walk”—bringing justice to the Cursed Earth outside the city until he or she dies. Traditionally, a judge’s last wish before retiring is always followed, and Fargo decides to retire with his last wish is for Dredd to be judged leniently.

Even as Dredd is sent to life in prison, Fargo leaves the city for his long walk.

However, all of this was part of a cunning plan. The new chief justice, Griffin—the one who recommended that Fargo retire to save Dredd—set this whole thing in motion. Years ago, a judge named Rico went a bit crazy and killed innocents. The incident was covered up and Rico was imprisoned in secret, all records of him wiped from the central computer.

Both Rico and Dredd were clones, created from genetic material from the finest of the judges’ council. The project, codenamed Janus, was abandoned and sealed after Rico went binky-bonkers. Now, though, Griffin wants to revive Janus so he can have perfect judges. He freed Rico from his secret imprisonment, had him impersonate Dredd to kill Hammond (Rico and Dredd have the same DNA), and for shits and giggles, he also got his hands on an old robot enforcer.

At Griffin’s urging, Rico foments more chaos, which should be enough to unseal Janus and allow Griffin to tighten the reins, as it were, with his private army of clones. Rico uses his knowledge of judge procedure and his big-ass robot to kill more than a hundred judges. This massacre, and subsequent rioting, leads the council to unseal Janus so Griffin can re-create it.

The shuttle taking Dredd (and Fergie, who winds up sitting next to him) to prison is shot down by a family of cannibals who live in the Cursed Earth. Dredd and Fergie are captured, but they escape and kill the family—with some help from Fargo, who is fatally stabbed. Before he dies, Fargo tells Dredd about Janus, and says that Rico wasn’t just his best friend, he was his brother.

Dredd and Fergie manage to break back into Mega City. He arrives at the council chambers just in time for Griffin and Rico to assassinate the rest of the council, and Griffin is able to frame Dredd for it. Dredd and Fergie escape to the former’s apartment, which has been trashed—and where Hershey is waiting. The three of them determine that Janus must be housed under the Statue of Liberty because power’s being diverted there. By the time they arrive, Rico’s sudden and inevitable betrayal of Griffin has already happened, and the robot has ripped Griffin’s arms and legs off.

Rico and Dredd face off on top of the Statue of Liberty, Dredd manages to toss Rico off to his doom, saying “Court’s adjourned.” Because of course he did.

The remaining judges want Dredd to be the new chief justice, but he insists on staying a street judge. However, Hershey does kiss him. (Insert Hershey’s kiss joke here.) And then Dredd drives off on his cycle.

“Negotiation’s over. Sentence is death.”

DreddWritten by Alex Garland
Directed by Pete Travis
Produced by Alex Garland, Andrew Macdonald, and Allon Reich
Original release date: July 11, 2012

Dredd is riding his bike through Mega City, chasing a van that is obviously being driven by someone under the influence. The occupants are taking Slo-Mo, a new narcotic on the streets that makes time go by very slowly. (Why this would appeal to junkies, most of whom want to escape from misery, is an exercise for the viewer, unless there’s a concomitant high, though that’s not at all clear from what we see of the drug.)

Dredd takes down the van, which kills two of the occupants. He chases the third into a food court where he stops the third despite his having taken a hostage.

Reporting back to HQ, the chief judge introduces him to a new recruit named Anderson. She didn’t quite pass at the Academy, falling short by three percent, but she’s a mutant—she was born on the outskirts near the radiation zone—who has psychic abilities. The chief wants Dredd to take her out for a day on the streets, see if her telepathy is enough to make up for that three percent. The chief will hire her or not based on Dredd’s assessment.

Central reports a triple homicide in Peach Trees, a two-hundred-story apartment complex. The three bodies were thrown from the two-hundredth floor after being flensed. They were also high on Slo-Mo when they were tossed, so they got to really savor the experience of falling to their doom.

TJ, the doctor who runs the medical center in Peach Trees, explains to Dredd and Anderson that an ex-hooker named Madeline Madrigal, a.k.a. Ma-Ma, runs all the gangs in Peach Trees, having taken over the four rival gangs that had been running things in the complex. TJ tells them where one of the drug dens is, and the judges raid it. Everyone is killed except for Kay, whom Anderson is fairly certain is the one who killed the three guys. Fairly certain isn’t enough, so Dredd plans to take him in for interrogation.

Ma-Ma doesn’t want Kay interrogated, as he knows too much, so she has her thugs kill the people in the control booth, then has her tech nerd patch into the control room and fool Central into thinking they’re running a drill of their lockdown procedures in case of a war. Blast doors lower, blocking the judges’ comms and trapping them inside. Ma-Ma comes over the PA announcing that there are two judges in Peach Trees and she expects them to be killed.

Dredd and Anderson go on the run, with Kay in tow, taking care of all the thugs who try to stop them. TJ refuses to let them into the medical center. Dredd accuses him of taking sides; TJ says there are no sides, that Dredd’s already dead.

They go to the 76th floor at the urging of a woman who just wants them out before any of the thugs get killed, her husband among them. (Anderson sensibly doesn’t tell her that she already put a bullet in her husband’s head.) Once there, Ma-Ma has her techie trap them, then she shows up with massive cannons and blasts the hell out of the entire floor, killing dozens of citizens. However, the onslaught puts a hole in a blast door, which is enough for Dredd to use an incendiary from his multipurpose weapon to blow a big hole. Once outside, their comms clear and they call for backup.

Unfortunately, they have to go back inside, as they’re sitting ducks on the roof. More unfortunately, the backup that arrives is on the take. Even more unfortunately, Kay manages to get out of his restraints and take Anderson hostage.

Luckily, the corrupt foursome aren’t very good at their jobs. One encounters Dredd and doesn’t ask after Anderson even though two judges called for backup, and only a bad guy would know that Anderson was taken. For her part, Anderson is able to get away when Kay makes the tactical error of trying to kill her with her own weapon, which is attuned to her DNA; when he tries to fire it, it blows his hand off. (Anderson kinda planted that idea in his head when she was doing a deep-dive interrogation of his mind.)

Anderson encounters another judge, but her psychic abilities reveal her intentions, and Anderson shoots her too. The remaining two corner Dredd, and even manage to wound him, but Dredd kills one, and Anderson kills the other before he can kill Dredd. They then proceed to the control room where the techie is willing to give up Ma-Ma’s location (the top floor) and the passcode to get into her stronghold (which Anderson reads psychically). Anderson lets him go free, to Dredd’s annoyance, as he’s guilty, but Anderson also saw in his mind how badly he’d suffered at Ma-Ma’s hands. And she figured she’s already failed her assessment once she got taken hostage, so in for a penny in for a pound.

Ma-Ma hooks up a dead-man switch to her arm. If her heart stops, an explosive will destroy the top floors, and likely the entire complex. Dredd is willing to bet that the signal won’t make it through two hundred floors’ worth of concrete, so he shoots her in the gut, gives her a shot of Slo-Mo, and tosses her over the balcony just like Kay did to the three dudes at the beginning on her order. She dies, the building doesn’t blow up, and the lockdown is released.

Anderson gives Dredd her badge and leaves, but then Dredd tells the chief that she passed.

“This is the law; disperse immediately!”

If you take these two movies and average them out, you get the prefect Judge Dredd movie. Each has significant flaws, and each has elements that are perfect.

Dredd is definitely the better adaptation of the source material. The storyline feels like it was more or less lifted from an issue of 2000 A.D., and Karl Urban always feels like he’s playing the character we’ve seen in the comics for forty years. However, the film doesn’t quite make it in terms of the visuals. Judge Dredd at least looks like a science fiction story. You get the sense that this is a crowded futuristic dystopia, with buildings stacked on buildings and everyone crammed together. Yes, it’s supposed to be a Mega City that stretches from Boston to D.C., but it still should have a crowded feel.

We don’t get that with Dredd, which never manages to feel like it’s the future. There’s nothing in the production design that screams “awful future,” it mostly just screams “contemporary Los Angeles.” Worse, Peach Trees never once feels like it’s two hundred stories tall. The production design and look and feel never quite live up to what the script (or the source material) call for.

However, for all that Judge Dredd looks like the comic, the story is a disaster. While the characters are nominally from the comics, they bear only a passing resemblance to them. The three writers of Judge Dredd took the basic setting for Dredd and slapped a bog-standard action-movie plot on top of it. The whole point of this particular future is that judgment is faceless and emotionless. That’s why we never see the judges’ faces. They’re the embodiment of the law. Having Dredd take off his helmet, and keep it off for 85% of the movie is just a disaster. And yes, it’s a movie, and yes, Stallone’s face is famous, but he was doing just fine at the beginning of the movie.

In fact, the first twenty minutes or so of Judge Dredd is easily the best adaptation of the comic strip ever done. It’s better than Dredd, and it’s way better than the rest of the movie it opens. Those twenty minutes prove that this production team could have done right by Dredd, but chose not to. Instead, we get tiresome character beats, a frame-up followed by a betrayal followed by an unconvincing return to glory, a dopey sidekick (seriously WHO THOUGHT PUTTING ROB SCHNEIDER AS THE GOOFY SIDEKICK IN A JUDGE DREDD MOVIE WAS A GOOD IDEA??????????????), a lame love interest (Diane Lane at least does well with the part of Judge Hershey, though the comic book version would never have kissed Dredd in a billion years), and a raving loony bad guy.

There’s a lot of talent in this movie, and I like that they cast both Max von Sydow and Jurgen Prochnow as supervising judges, so we didn’t know which one of them was the bad guy at first. (But it had to be one of them. I mean, it’s Max von Sydow and Jurgen Prochnow, for crying out loud, neither of these two is likely to play a good guy, and certainly both of them aren’t gonna.) Joan Chen is wasted as a scientist who works with the bad guys, who’s mostly there to give Hershey someone to fight in the climax while Dredd is facing off against Rico. Speaking of Rico, Armand Assante is also wasted in a role that literally anyone who was good at overacting could play.

And then there’s Rob Schneider. Sheesh. Though he does do a good Stallone impersonation at one point, which is also the only actual laugh the character gets.

While the cast is less famous in Dredd—only Urban and Lena Headey are what you’d call names—the casting is much stronger. For one thing, Judge Dredd‘s Mega City is populated entirely by white people, while Dredd remembers that if you shove everyone on the east coast together into one big city, you might actually encounter a person of color or twelve. And even if you’ve never heard of Rakie Ayola, she’s better at playing the chief judge than either von Sydow or Prochnow.

Both movies nailed their lead, at least. Stallone does fine when he’s actually playing Dredd in the first twenty minutes, before it goes from being a Dredd movie to a Generic Stallone Action Movie, and Urban is superb, channeling Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry (a major influence on the original comics character) to good effect. And both actors have distinct jaws, which is a vital component of playing the role…

Maybe some day we’ll get the perfect Judge Dredd movie that combines the production values of Judge Dredd with the script sensibilities of Dredd. These two movies’ failures don’t bode well, but then the comic book character’s still going strong after four decades, so who knows what’ll happen in another decade or two?

I know I said I’d do The Mask and Son of the Mask this week, but I was in more of a Dredd mood for whatever reason. We’ll dive into the Tex Avery-esque adaptation of the Dark Horse character next week.

Keith R.A. DeCandido urges folks to check out his Patreon, where you can get cat photos, regular TV and movie reviews, excerpts from his upcoming fiction works, exclusive original vignettes featuring his original characters, and more niftiness.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/12/08/i-am-the-law-judge-dredd-1995-and-dredd-2012/feed/51“I’m not bedtime story lady, so pay attention!” — Barb Wire and Tank Girlhttps://www.tor.com/2017/12/01/im-not-bedtime-story-lady-so-pay-attention-barb-wire-and-tank-girl/
https://www.tor.com/2017/12/01/im-not-bedtime-story-lady-so-pay-attention-barb-wire-and-tank-girl/#commentsFri, 01 Dec 2017 17:00:48 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=319391The 1990s was the era of the “bad girl” in comics, with such characters as Shi, Witchblade, Razor, the women of Gen13, and more. Two of the earliest and most successful examples were Tank Girl, which started in a UK comic magazine called Deadline, and which was more of an underground comic tying into the […]]]>

The 1990s was the era of the “bad girl” in comics, with such characters as Shi, Witchblade, Razor, the women of Gen13, and more. Two of the earliest and most successful examples were Tank Girl, which started in a UK comic magazine called Deadline, and which was more of an underground comic tying into the punk scene of the era; and Barb Wire, a dystopian future series from Dark Horse.

Both got made into mid-1990s movies that did remarkably poorly at the box office.

Barb Wire is one of many films produced by Dark Horse Entertainment, an arm of the comics company designed specifically to produce film and TV versions of their funnybooks. Barb Wire was their fourth film (following The Mask, which we’ll cover next week, along with Dr. Giggles and Timecop), and their first big flop. Intended as a starring vehicle for Pamela Anderson (then going by her married name of Pamela Anderson Lee), whose star was rising following her runs on Home Improvement and Baywatch, it failed rather spectacularly at that, as the movie tanked with both critics and viewers. On top of that, it received multiple Golden Raspberry Awards, with Anderson winning a Razzie for Worst New Star (she was also nominated for Worst Actress, though she “lost” to Demi Moore, whose Striptease “beat” Barb Wire for Worst Picture).

Tank Girl had similar issues finding its audience, though it at least has managed to gain a cult following in the years since its release. Director Rachel Talalay got the rights to the comic after being given a copy by her step-daughter. She had trouble finding a studio, and when MGM agreed, they wound up making tons of changes and alterations based on focus groups and an unwillingness to fully embrace the sleazier aspects of the storyline. (As just one example, an early scene was re-shot to remove Tank Girl’s dildo collection.) Talalay and comics creators Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin were all displeased with how the final product came out. Hewlett and Martin even had to create several animated and comic panels to flesh out scenes that were either never shot or shot poorly, and they made several changes to the script that were ignored.

“I don’t know how you do things in Washington, Colonel, but I do make the occasional arrest without slaughter.”

Barb WireWritten by Ilene Chaiken and Chuck Pfarrer
Directed by David Hogan
Produced by Todd Moyer and Mike Richardson and Brad Wyman
Original release date: May 3, 1996

The year is 2017. (No, really, that’s the year this movie takes place in!) As the Second American Civil War rages on, with the fascistic Congressional Directorate coming out mostly ahead, the only free city in what used to be the United States is Steel Harbor. Barbara Kopetski, who now goes by “Barb Wire,” is the newest dancer at a strip club. (One audience member calls her “babe,” which she hates so much that she throws her shoe at him, the spike heel impaling his head. The crowd thinks that’s just an awesome addition to the act.)

Turns out her strip act is a cover. She’s been hired to retrieve a girl who was kidnapped by the club’s owner. She frees the girl and returns her to her parents for payment—though they don’t have the full amount they agreed on, so Barb takes their car.

She returns to the bar she owns, the Hammerhead. Even with the rescue job, she can’t quite make payroll, so she does a bounty hunter job, again posing as a sex worker, this time a prostitute. She gets a john who lives next door to a guy who skipped out on bail—said john allows her ingress to the apartment building, which is only possible via retinal scan of a resident.

The john is into bondage, and she uses the paddle to knock him unconscious rather than spank him, then blows the wall between his place and that of Krebs, her target. However, to her surprise, Krebs has protection: two Steel Harbor cops, moonlighting for Schmitz, the bail bondsman. Barb kills them both and delivers Krebs to Schmitz.

But it turns out that Krebs didn’t skip bail. In a world where everyone is identified by retinal scan, Krebs has in his possession special contact lenses that will get anyone through any such scan.

Krebs has made a deal with Axel Hood, a former resistance fighter, and former lover of Barb’s. Hood and Barb fought against the Directorate in the past, along with Barb’s brother Charley. Charley was blinded by a grenade and now he spends all his time at the Hammerhead drinking.

Hood is transporting Dr. Corrinna Devonshire, a.k.a. “Cora D,” through Steel Harbor with the intent of getting her to Canada. She has in her DNA the cure to a nasty disease that the Directorate is going to use to wipe out any population that doesn’t submit to their rule. Hood and Devonshire are married. With Krebs captured, Hood goes to Barb, but she no longer takes sides, and won’t help them.

The Directorate has sent Colonel Pryzer to find Devonshire and bring her back alive. Working with the chief of Steel Harbor Police—the very corrupt Alexander Willis—Pryzer finds Krebs’s body. Both his eyes and the contacts have been removed.

It turns out that Schmitz has them. He tries to get Barb to broker a deal, but she’s not interested. However, he hides the contacts in her kitchen and runs away. Pryzer coerces Willis into getting a warrant to search Hammerhead. Of course, Pryzer’s soldiers’ notion of “searching” is to smash and shoot up the place, which probably would have destroyed the lenses, but whatever.

Barb brokers a deal with “Big Fatso,” the local crime boss. He’ll guarantee her and Charley safe passage to the airport in exchange for the lenses and a ton of cash. Her plan is to go to Europe, where Charley can get his eyes reconstructed.

However, Pryzer has tortured and killed the local resistance cell as well as Charley, and strung them up. Furious, Barb changes plans, and takes Hood and Devonshire with her to meet Big Fatso. However, the crime boss has double-crossed her, and Pryzer arrives with Willis.

While pretending to handcuff Barb, Willis hands her a grenade, which enables her to cause enough of a distraction for her, Hood, Devonshire, and Willis to drive through the unoccupied zone toward the airport. Pryzer and his troops give chase, but eventually our heroes are triumphant as Pryzer’s troops are killed and the colonel himself is blown up. Barb gives Devonshire the lenses (the ones she gave to Big Fatso were ordinary lenses; she had the real ones in her own eyes) so she can fly to Québec with Hood, and Barb still has the money from Big Fatso, so she can fly wherever she wants. As she goes off, Willis says that he thinks he’s in love, which is a much crummier closing line than, “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“Look, it’s been swell, but the swelling’s gone down.”

Tank GirlWritten by Tedi Sarafian
Directed by Rachel Talalay
Produced by Pen Densham and Richard Barton Lewis and John Watson
Original release date: March 31, 1995

It’s the year 2033, and a comet struck the Earth. It hasn’t rained since, and water has become a valued commodity. Rebecca Buck is part of an underground that siphons their own water illegally—all water is controlled by the prosaically named Water and Power Company, run by Kesslee.

Rebecca is a little crazy and somewhat freewheeling. When W&P shows up at the commune where she lives, she’s one of only two survivors. Both she and Sam, one of the girls, are taken prisoner. Everyone else, including her lover and her buffalo, are shot and killed.

Continuing to rebel, Kesslee views Rebecca as a project, someone it will be fun to break. He never even comes close, despite straitjackets, imprisoning her in a tiny tube, and more. She tries to escape, with the help of a technician named Jet Girl, but they fail. Kesslee uses Rebecca as a stalking horse to find the sub-gates that lead to the hideout of the Rippers—genetically modified soldiers from a previous war that have been left on their own. Rippers have ravaged the area, working against W&P, and Kesslee wants them destroyed.

However, just as they’re about to send Rebecca out to find the sub-gates, the Rippers attack, leaving Kesslee maimed (his face is all but destroyed, and his left arm is cut off) and enabling Rebecca and Jet to escape in a tank and a flyer.

They run away across the desert, coming across Sub Girl, who helps them refurbish their vehicles to make them look more funky (and less like they come from W&P). Rebecca—or Tank Girl, as she prefers to now be called—finds out that Sam is alive and is employed at Liquid Silver, a sex club.

Kesslee, who is in the process of receiving a lethal prosthetic arm and a holographic new head, sets a trap for Tank Girl and Jet at Liquid Silver, but it doesn’t quite spring according to plan, as the two women get away—after Tank Girl forces the Madam to sing Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It.” Kesslee is able to take Sam prisoner, though.

Determined to get Sam back, Tank Girl needs an army, so she decides to recruit the Rippers. She and Jet do exactly what Kesslee had wanted her to do, and they find a Ripper hideout. The Rippers themselves—a product of splicing human and kangaroo DNA—are not particularly welcoming at first, but are willing to give them a chance to prove their loyalty. They’ve received word of a shipment of weapons to W&P, and they want Tank and Jet to get it for them.

The women succeed, but the shipment isn’t weapons—it’s the body of the Rippers’ leader, Johnny Prophet, whom they had thought was on walkabout. Furious, the Rippers, Tank, and Jet attack W&P’s headquarters, but they find out that Kesslee has been one step ahead of them all along. He had placed subcutaneous microphones in Tank so he listened in on everything she said and heard.

However, the Rippers manage to take care of most of Kesslee’s troops, and Tank Girl takes out Kesslee himself, stabbing him with the same multiblade device that dehydrates a person that he’s used on several of his underlings. The Rippers and Tank Girl and Jet Girl all have control of the water now.

“All in favor of crumpets and tea, say ‘Aye’!”

Okay, first of all, I’d totally forgotten that Talalay, who has rapidly become one of the finer directors of genre TV shows (in the last year alone, she has directed episodes of Doctor Who, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Riverdale, Sherlock, and Supergirl) directed Tank Girl.

And she did a decent job, mostly by the perfect casting of Lori Petty in the title role. Petty was pretty much born to play Hewlett and Martin’s anarchic character. The movie is a delight to watch, simply because Petty is just having so much fun in the role. Tank Girl is who we all wish we could be, constantly laughing in the face of danger and refusing to give in to the bad guys and always coming out ahead, mostly by virtue of having absolutely no fucks to give.

It’s only a pity the plot is so incredibly terrible. Coherent plotting isn’t really one of Tank Girl’s strong suits in four-color or 35-millimeter form, but so many things in this movie just happen because it’s the next thing without rhyme or reason. And that level of craziness can work if you actually embrace it, but the movie never really goes all the way in diving feet-first into the insanity. (From all reports, Talalay wanted to, but was restrained by MGM.)

On top of that, the original comic has a very Anglo-Australian sensibility, which is completely missing from this interpretation. (It doesn’t help that the only Brits in the cast are Malcolm McDowell and Naomi Watts.)

Barb Wire also has plot issues, but they’re much simpler and more fundamental: the story is basically a dystopian science fiction version of Casablanca, with many of the genders reversed.

Here’s the thing—there are several reasons why Casablanca is a classic and considered one of the great movies of all time, but none of those reasons are the plot. The actual story of Casablanca is kinda dumb. What makes it work, though, are the performances, the romance, and most especially some of the finest dialogue in any film ever.

None of those elements are present in Barb Wire. The script is pedestrian, the romance is nonexistent (there’s plenty of lust in this movie, but Anderson and Temuera Morrison have absolutely no chemistry), and the performances are almost uniformly terrible. The only actor who shows up for work, as it were, is the always-reliable Xander Berkeley as Willis. Just as Claude Rains almost stole the show in Casablanca with his gleefully corrupt Inspector Renault, Berkeley completely steals the show as the similarly corrupt Willis, only this time it’s by process of elimination, as there’s nobody else in this movie who can actually act.

Well, okay, Steve Railsback can act—he plays Pryzer—but he doesn’t bother to do so. The climax when Pryzer, after being controlled and calm the entire movie, suddenly starts cackling like a loon in his final confrontation with Barb may be the most embarrassing moment of Railsback’s career (and I say this acknowledging that he starred in Lifeforce). And Anderson can, too, but her talents are much better suited to comedy (as an example, she was excellent in the series V.I.P., where she was pretty much playing a version of herself for laughs, but it worked). Here, she’s called upon to be an embittered antihero, and it’s a bad fit. There’s also a flashback to her as a soldier, which is even more laughable than her attempt to be an action hero.

Tank Girl fares much better in the performance part, at least, but that’s because Talalay decided to use good actors in her film. The presence of a supporting cast that includes Ice-T, Reg E. Cathey, Jeff Kober, and James Hong, as well as Watts and McDowell, can cover a multitude of sins.

These are both dystopian SF movies based on independent comics of the late 1980s/early 1990s, and both are deeply flawed, but the only one actually worth watching is Tank Girl, as there’s something to leaven the flaws—Petty’s performance, mostly. In Barb Wire, there’s really nothing, unless you want to see a great deal of Anderson’s cleavage. (Honestly, Anderson’s breast implants are prominent enough in this movie that they should’ve gotten separate billing.) Both are written as strong feminist stories, but the fetishizing of Anderson’s body and the general terrible-ness of Barb Wire kinda ruins that. Tank Girl succeeds much more admirably, especially in the sis-mance between Tank and Jet.

Next week, as indicated above, we’ll look at one of Dark Horse’s successes, The Mask, as well as its less-successful sequel Son of the Mask. (I know I said last time I’d do Judge Dredd with Barb Wire, but this is a better fit. We’ll look at both Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone and the more recent Dredd with Karl Urban in two weeks.)

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/12/01/im-not-bedtime-story-lady-so-pay-attention-barb-wire-and-tank-girl/feed/30Running Away from Its Roots — Marvel’s The Punisher Season Onehttps://www.tor.com/2017/11/22/running-away-from-its-roots-marvels-the-punisher-season-one/
https://www.tor.com/2017/11/22/running-away-from-its-roots-marvels-the-punisher-season-one/#commentsWed, 22 Nov 2017 15:30:39 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=316534Netflix’s little corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been focused on more street-level stuff rather than big battles to save the world. The highest stakes we’ve seen have been to save a neighborhood or a city or maybe just a few people, but that’s often enough. The Punisher both continues that trend and subverts […]]]>

Netflix’s little corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been focused on more street-level stuff rather than big battles to save the world. The highest stakes we’ve seen have been to save a neighborhood or a city or maybe just a few people, but that’s often enough.

The Punisher both continues that trend and subverts it. Unlike every other protagonist in an MCU film and a Netflix show in particular, Frank Castle doesn’t have powers (Daredevil has his super-senses, Iron Fist has his titular ability, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones have super-strength) or extranormal enhancements (armor, webbing, magic hammer, shrink ray). And nobody really gets saved here, which is fitting, as the Punisher isn’t a hero. What this is more about is exposing corruption.

Show-runner Steve Lightfoot (who is inexplicably listed as the “creator” of the show) takes this all about ten steps further by completely removing Castle from any semblance of the MCU.

SPOILERS for this series and the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Most of the comic-book portrayals of the Punisher have been about vengeance and violence. Frank Castle is very much based on Mack Bolan, Don Pendleton’s “Executioner” character, whose family was killed by the mob and who takes out the mob in revenge for that act. Castle’s backstory is similar, but Marvel’s The Punisher adjusts things so that the mob is just the cover. The strings of the killers of the Castle family were being pulled by a rogue CIA operation.

But while that would seem to give us the vengeance and the violence, that’s deemphasized to instead provide us with one part of Castle’s backstory that usually stays in his backstory: his military background. Lightfoot’s interest here is in exploring PTSD, and the different ways people in combat react to not being in combat anymore.

As far as that goes, it’s an interesting aspect of Castle’s personality to explore. The storyline expands it, showing not just Castle, but other ex-combatants: Curtis Hoyle, who lost a leg, and leads group therapy sessions; Billy Russo, who went and formed the Blackwater-esque Anvil, so he can still be a soldier, but make more money at it; Lewis Walcott, who is utterly unequipped to handle the real world, digging a trench in his backyard so he can sleep, and eventually killing his best friend and becoming a bomber; O’Connor, mad at the world, and refusing to accept reality, or consequences; and Castle himself, who keeps finding another war to fight.

All the actors here do superb work, and that’s what sells a lot of it. Jon Bernthal in particular continues his stellar inhabiting of Castle, putting him miles ahead of the last three guys to try it. Castle is a person with spectacular skill for violence, who was able to hold onto his humanity because he had his family and the love of his wife and kids. Lightfoot sensibly doesn’t completely sugar-coat Castle’s family life—we see him angry at his kids and arguing with his wife a couple times in flashbacks and dream sequences—but he’s still a much different person before his family dies. Having said that, we see flashes of it, particularly when he deals with Sarah Lieberman and her kids, though it’s more subdued. And generally, Castle is allowed to be a complex character, which puts him one up on Bolan, on the three previous Punisher movies, and on the more simplistic character treatments in the comics (though there are plenty of nuanced portrayals in four-color as well). Bernthal is very much up to the challenge, and if nothing else, The Punisher gives us a Frank Castle who is far more complex than a simplistic kill-all-bad-guys character.

It also gives us a plot that actually is worthy of thirteen episodes, which makes it unique among the six Marvel Netflix seasons that are a baker’s dozen parts long. Lightfoot takes the time needed to establish his characters, to let the plot breathe, and also to show numerous aspects to each theme. There’s family: Castle’s loss of family; Lieberman’s temporarily loss of family, as well as his creepy insistence on spying on them clandestinely while they think he’s dead; there’s Madani’s speech to Stein about how dedicated agents can’t have families; and there’s the sense of family among the military, a bond that continues after one’s enlistment is done.

There’s also doing what’s right versus doing what’s legal. It isn’t just our titular protagonist who struggles with that (well, okay, Castle doesn’t struggle with it at all, he just does what he thinks needs doing), but half the cast deals with it. Madani hides information from her superiors because she doesn’t know who in authority to trust; Lieberman fakes his own death because when he followed procedure, he got framed; both Walcott and O’Connor think the system is rigged against them and act against it, O’Connor mostly with just bitching and moaning, Walcott with bombs; Karen Page has to be reminded by her boss that they have to talk to the FBI before they publicize Walcott’s letter to her; and even our bad guys face it, as Rawlins started Project Cerberus because he felt it was needed to keep America safe, even if it was horribly illegal and despicably immoral. All of these themes stretch out over the entire season.

We also get a wide range of folks. Yes, there are evil government agents in Rawlins and Wolf and Bennett (though I’m reallyreallyreally sick and tired of the trope of showing that people are corrupt because they’re into BDSM), but there are also good ones in Hernandez and James (played excellently by, respectively, Tony Plana and Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio), as well as Madani and Stein and Lieberman. Not all the ex-military are crazed killers like Walcott and Castle, or venal shits like Russo, there’s also Hoyle and Gunner Henderson (the unsung hero of the season, as his video is the key to the whole story) and the other people in Hoyle’s group therapy.

In fact, the only real issue is the first episode. It felt out of place after I’d watched the first three, and it’s even more so after watching the remaining ten. “3AM’s” purpose is to get Castle back into the Punisher game, but he was already there when we saw him last, and we aren’t seeing him there now because the cold open dispenses with it for some reason.

And therein lies The Punisher’s biggest issue. We left Castle all set up for his solo series at the end of Daredevil season 2, with a cache of weapons and a desire to nail everyone connected to killing his family. He does that before the credits roll in “3AM,” and later the weapons are gone, as Turk sold them to someone else.

That’s the first of many ways in which Lightfoot runs completely away from the fact that this is in the MCU. We do have several characters show up—Schoonover, established in DD as Castle’s CO in Afghanistan, appears in flashback (always good to see Clancy Brown), Page is in several episodes, Turk shows up that one time, Page’s involvement with taking down Wilson Fisk is mentioned, plus we also get Page’s boss Ellison, and Detective Mahoney from DD appears in the brilliant tenth episode “Virtue of the Vicious,” a vaguely Rashomon-esque look at Walcott’s attack on a pro-gun-control senator. (Honestly, even if the rest of the season sucked, I absolutely adore that tenth one, a magnificent standalone amidst the serial narrative.)

But those appearances only highlight how much the series avoids acknowledging that it’s part of the MCU. At no point, for example, is Daredevil mentioned, even though he was established as being one of Castle’s main inspirations for taking on the mantle of the Punisher.

This is a significant flaw for several reasons. I hasten to add that it’s not because it would be cool to see background mentions of other events (like the earthquake in The Defenders) or people (like, say, a commercial for Mariah Dillard), though it would be. That’s not really necessary though. Fan service can be fun, but it’s not required.

No, there are two problems with Lightfoot’s lack of desire to even acknowledge that this takes place in the same world as the other Netflix shows, not to mention the movies, one small, one large.

The small one is simply that of expectations. The Marvel logo is on top of the title and appears at the beginning. When you see that word, you figure this will be a fantastical world of heroes and villains and people with extra-normal abilities far beyond those of normal humans. The Netflix series in particular have been superb at showing the real-world consequences of those powers on ordinary, everyday people.

Bigger than that, though, is the fact that this show raises all kinds of issues about taking the law into your own hands, and about gun control, and about the struggle between danger and safety. But those arguments—which we see a lot of particularly in “Front Toward Enemy” and “Virtue of the Vicious”—are exactly the same as we’d hear in the world today, and are hearing quite a lot of. In fact, they’re depressingly simplistic ones, particularly Walcott and O’Connor’s fear of having their guns taken because then they won’t be able to overthrow the government if it gets too corrupt. (I wish someone would have pointed out that that particular interpretation of the Second Amendment is one that became useless around World War II. The government has tanks; the government has missiles; the government has drones. There’s really not much you can do against that with a few assault rifles and bullets…)

Here’s the thing: that argument would have to be much different in the MCU. This is a world in which a lot more people take the law into their own hands. It’s a world in which people have, without any legal authority, taken down the likes of Fisk and Willis Stryker and the Hand and Kilgrave and the Vulture—not to mention the Chitauri invasion—and that’s just in New York! Vigilantism is much more of a thing in the MCU, and a story that actually examined how that would affect the gun-control debate would have been much more interesting than the warmed-over treatment it gets here.

It’s especially maddening with Page, who has a concealed carry permit because of what she went through in the two seasons of Daredevil, and the specifics of that are never brought up. Hell, Page has several costumed vigilantes among her acquaintances (not just Castle and Daredevil, but Iron Fist, who went to her with a story in his first season, plus she at least came across Jessica Jones and Luke Cage in The Defenders). But never is that particular aspect of this world mentioned, and it takes the wind out of its sails.

To make matters worse, there are several character fates that are 100% dictated by the fact that they’re existing comics characters—starting with the lead. CIA and DHS giving Castle a free pass in “Memento Mori” just doesn’t pass the smell test at all. We’re talking about a multiple mass murderer, and he should be in Supermax. Hell, he gave his testimony to Madani without any expectation of immunity. In addition, it makes no sense, none, that Castle leaves either Turk alive early on or Russo alive at the end. In both cases, it’s because they’re existing characters, the former having shown up in DD, Luke Cage, and The Defenders, the latter the analogue to Punisher’s comics nemesis Jigsaw. Instead of killing Russo, Castle obligingly gives us Jigsaw’s comics origin, tearing the good-looking man’s face up. It feels constructed and out of place, especially given how aggressively Lightfoot has avoided four-color connections generally.

Having said all that, Marvel’s The Punisher is still a good series. The acting is uniformly phenomenal—I haven’t even mentioned Jaime Ray Newman’s brilliant turn as the emotionally exhausted Sarah, or Paul Schulze’s equally brilliant performance as the super-controlled Rawlins, who finally loses that control when Castle’s actions result in him losing his cushy-tushy CIA job, or the generally excellent work by Jason R. Moore as Hoyle, Delaney Williams as O’Connor, Daniel Webber as Walcott, Ripley Solo as Lieberman’s daughter, and Amber Rose Revah as Madani.

But it could’ve been a great series if they actually acknowledged the possessive at the beginning of the series title.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/11/22/running-away-from-its-roots-marvels-the-punisher-season-one/feed/34Marvel’s The Punisher First Impressions of Episodes 1-3https://www.tor.com/2017/11/20/marvels-the-punisher-first-impressions-of-episodes-1-3/
https://www.tor.com/2017/11/20/marvels-the-punisher-first-impressions-of-episodes-1-3/#commentsMon, 20 Nov 2017 14:00:05 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=315419“I actually care what happens to you, which makes precisely one of us.” There were three separate attempts to adapt the Punisher for live-action, including one from Marvel Studios itself, Punisher: War Zone. Marvel found movie success in their big-time heroes, and their more street-level types wound up thriving in television, specifically Netflix. To that […]]]>

“I actually care what happens to you, which makes precisely one of us.”

To that end, instead of a fourth attempt at the Punisher in film as part of the MCU, the character was folded into the Defenders set of shows by being half the plot of season 2 of Daredevil. Jon Bernthal inhabited the role so magnificently that Netflix green-lit a wholly unplanned Punisher series to go along with Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Defenders.

Based on the first three episodes, we get a story that, at least so far, is the most connected to the real world of soldiers and violence and governments and politics, and the least related to superpowers and alien invasions.

SPOILERS for the Netflix corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The series gets off to an odd start, as we see Castle take care of all the people involved in the death of his family, a mission he left for at the end of DD season 2, and then he burns his skull shirt, all before the credits roll. Then Castle is “Paul Castiglione,” a demolition worker on a construction site who talks to nobody, has a thick beard (more than one person accuses him of becoming a hipster) and curly hair, and is barely recognizable as the killing machine we saw in the cold open.

But of course, by the end of the episode, he’s saved the life of the one person who was nice to him, killed the guys who were mean to him (who are criminals so it’s okay? kind of? more on them in a bit), and then the actual plot kicks in at the end of the first episode when David “Micro” Lieberman finds him in his blanket surveillance of the city.

Lieberman is a character that is far too common on screen, the super-hacker (SEE ALSO: Hardison on Leverage, Riley on McGyver, and all those other characters who have unlimited and illegal access to all the surveillance and all the top-of-the-line software!), who can basically perform magic. Sure, it’s a world that has Norse gods and green rage-monsters and Tony Stark, but this series makes an effort to be separate from that. (Even when we see Karen Page in episode 2, there’s absolutely no mention of Daredevil or anyone else from that world. Besides her and her boss Ellison, the only other MCU character in these first three episodes is Clancy Brown’s Schoonover, already established in DD season 2 as Castle’s CO in Afghanistan.)

It is interesting to see the journey Lieberman and Castle go on that leads to their teaming up at the end of episode 3, as they’re not friends, and they don’t trust each other, but they have a common goal, and their skills complement each other. (As Lieberman puts it, every missile needs a guidance system.)

There are a lot of little things that these first three episodes do right. After suffering through the half-assed PTSD in Iron Fist, it’s a relief to have a show do it right. Not just Jon Bernthal’s pained performance as Castle, where you see every emotion etched on his pores, but also in the group sessions that Castle hovers on the periphery of, and all the various ex-military folk’s differing reactions to coming home from combat. This series takes the horrors of war seriously, leading up thematically to the ambush that puts Castle over the edge in the flashback in episode 3.

Unfortunately, a lot of the rest of it feels off. The actual storyline is incredibly predictable and derivative, and one we’ve seen a billion times before. In the original comics, Castle was a Vietnam veteran, and the vet-comes-home-and-can’t-adjust storyline is territory that’s been well trod in the four decades since that war ended. The best chance to give this a special twist is that it is in the MCU, but so far there’s nothing that interesting. It’s just a fairly standard corruption storyline complete with unrealistic faked deaths. (Seriously, why does anyone believe that Lieberman is dead when they didn’t find his body after it fell into the Central Park Reservoir, which is a closed system? If he fell into the Atlantic, I’d buy it, but not an artificial body of water in a constructed park.)

Not to mention the very problematic first episode, which is almost completely standalone. Every beat is eminently predictable, from Castle brushing off the friendship attempt, to his refusing to engage until someone’s life is in danger, to just the general tired sliminess of the construction workers. Also, these are just working stiffs who turn to crime, not because they’re bad guys, but because they have money trouble. Yes, they’re assholes, but are they really assholes who deserve to die? Since “3AM” is all just shifting plot stuff around to get Castle back into the Punisher game, I doubt that the series will address this, as the subsequent twelve episodes seem entirely focused on Castle’s military past.

What the story lacks in originality and interest it makes up for in acting. Bernthal remains superlative in the title role, and he’s very well supported by Jason R. Moore’s rock-steady Curtis, Ben Barnes’s charismatic Russo, Paul Schulze’s sleazy Rawlins, and especially Amber Rose Revah and Jaime Ray Newman as, respectively, Agent Madani (whose investigation into what happened in Kandahar is very obviously going to collide with Castle and Lieberman’s own look into it) and Lieberman’s “widow” Sarah. Newman especially elevates a role that could easily have been a tired cliché and makes Sarah into a smart, clever, tragic presence in her own right.

Still, maybe it’s because I’ve been watching so many superhero films of the late twentieth century that were trying very hard to run away from their comic-book roots, but by eliminating the fantastical elements that one expects by the possessive “Marvel’s” before the title, it also removes what would separate this story from all eight billion other ones of its ilk.

Let’s hope that things pick up as we go along. We’ll have a full review of the entire 13-episode season on Tuesday.

SPOILER ALERT! Please try to keep the comments as spoiler-free of episodes 4-13 as possible.

Keith R.A. DeCandido writes “4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch” for this site every Friday. He has also written about Star Trek, Stargate, Batman, Wonder Woman, Doctor Who, and the other Marvel Netflix series. In addition, he’s the author of a metric buttload of fiction, most recently the Marvel “Tales of Asgard” trilogy featuring Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three, three Super City Cops eBook novellas about cops in a city filled with superheroes, and tons more. He’s Author Guest of Honor at Atomacon 2017 this weekend in North Charleston, South Carolina; check out his schedule here.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/11/20/marvels-the-punisher-first-impressions-of-episodes-1-3/feed/40’38 Special—The Rocketeer and The Phantomhttps://www.tor.com/2017/11/17/38-special-the-rocketeer-and-the-phantom/
https://www.tor.com/2017/11/17/38-special-the-rocketeer-and-the-phantom/#commentsFri, 17 Nov 2017 18:30:23 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=315260The Rocketeer was created in 1982 by the late Dave Stevens as a tribute to Depression-era movie serials and comic strips and such. Stevens had an affinity for the pop culture of the first half of the 20th century, having made a career of creating art in the style of that bygone era. Besides The […]]]>

The Rocketeer was created in 1982 by the late Dave Stevens as a tribute to Depression-era movie serials and comic strips and such. Stevens had an affinity for the pop culture of the first half of the 20th century, having made a career of creating art in the style of that bygone era. Besides The Rocketeer, his best-known works were his illustrations of pinup model Bettie Page (who was also a supporting character in The Rocketeer).

The Phantom was created in 1936 by the late Lee Falk (who continued to write The Phantom comic strip until his death in 1999 at the age of 87), and was the very type of adventure story that Stevens was nostalgic for and trying to re-create with his Rocketeer character.

Both characters were adapted into live-action movies in the 1990s that took place in 1938 and would prove to be disappointments at the box office.

The Rocketeer film rights were sold by Stevens within a year of the character’s creation to Disney, but it took the better part of a decade for the movie to actually be made. Part of this was due to creative differences, including Disney wanting to change the design of the character’s outfit, and director Joe Johnston wanting to cast a relative unknown in the title role.

Eventually, the movie was released in 1991 with Billy Campbell in what he had hoped to be his breakout in the title role. Co-stars included former James Bond Timothy Dalton as the Errol Flynn-esque Neville Sinclair, Jennifer Connelly as Jenny Blake (a reworking of Page), and Alan Arkin as Peevy. Hopes of sequels (Stevens and screenwriters Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo envisioned this as a trilogy) were dashed by the movie’s poor box office and lukewarm reviews. This remains the only screen version of the Rocketeer, so far, at least—Disney’s been talking about a new Rocketeer movie for more than five years now.

The 1996 film version of The Phantom was one of many screen adaptations of the character, though the only live-action feature film. There was a movie serial in 1943 starring Tom Tyler, two animated series that featured the character (Defenders of the Earth in the 1980s and Phantom 2040 in the 1990s), a TV miniseries starring Ryan Carnes in 2010, and an unsuccessful pilot for a TV show in 1961 starring Roger Creed, Lon Chaney Jr., Paulette Goddard, and Richard Kiel.

Neither of these two films really did well with movie audiences, though both have something of a cult following now. (Johnston credits his directing of The Rocketeer with getting the gig to direct Captain America: The First Avenger.) It is safe to say that The Phantom‘s tag line of “SLAM EVIL!” remains the worst tag line in the entire history of Hollywood…

“I don’t work for no two-bit Nazi!”

The RocketeerWritten by Danny Bilson & Paul De Meo & William Dear
Directed by Joe Johnston
Produced by Charles Gordon & Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin
Original release date: June 21, 1991

In 1938, stunt pilot Clifford Secord tests his Gee Bee, which has been put together by his crew, led by “Peavy” Peabody. He flies right over a car chase—two feds are chasing a couple of gangsters who stole a personal rocket-pack from inventor Howard Hughes. One of the gangsters shoots at Secord’s plane, thinking that it belongs to the feds, and the Gee Bee is badly damaged and crashes. One gangster is killed, but the driver swaps out the rocket pack for a vacuum cleaner, hiding the rocket in an abandoned plane in a hangar. The car winds up crashing into a fuel tank and exploding, though the driver bailed out before that. Before he’s taken the hospital, the gangster tells the feds that Hughes’s property blew up with the car. The feds recover the wreckage and return it to Hughes. The inventor makes it clear that he will not try to make another rocket pack.

Secord and Peavy are devastated, as the airfield owner, Otis Bigelow, is charging them for the damage, and they’re out a plane. Bigelow talks them into reviving their clown act to pay down the debt, which Secord reluctantly agrees to. As he and Peavy are digging the clown plane out of mothballs, they find Hughes’s rocket pack, which the gangster hid in their plane.

They test it on a statue and discover that it works beautifully, though it needs a helmet for protection and to steer, as there’s no rudder. Peavy writes up specs for the rocket and designs a helmet. Secord wants to use this jet pack as a new flying act that will pay much better than the clown act. Peavy wants to test it further before they try it.

The gangsters who stole the rocket in the first place work for Eddie Valentine. Valentine, in turn, works for Neville Sinclair, an actor who has hired Valentine to retrieve the rocket. Valentine isn’t thrilled that one of his people is dead and that the feds are after him.

Secord takes his girlfriend, Jenny Blake, out on a date to see a movie. The newsreel before the picture talks about a German zeppelin that is flying across country and will arrive in Los Angeles soon. This might be important later.

The movie is a Sinclair picture about aviation, which Secord and his buddies pick apart at the Bull Dog Diner after the movie, to Blake’s annoyance. Blake is in Sinclair’s latest flick, though she didn’t get the part of the princess with one line of dialogue (that went to the producer’s niece, who is terrible), and is instead an extra.

Blake also finds out about Secord almost dying and losing the Gee Bee by accident, as Malcolm, one of the pit crew, mentions it, assuming she already knew. But Secord didn’t want to worry her, and then—because he hasn’t pissed her off enough—he also belittles her acting career. She then storms off in a huff.

Sinclair sends a massive thug named Lothar to question the driver in the hospital, who reveals where he hid it right before Lothar breaks him in two. (The nurse and cop guarding him are too busy listening to the radio to hear him until it’s too late.)

However, Valentine’s goons don’t find the rocket pack where the driver said it would be. They keep an eye on the air show, figuring that one of the pilots who rent space there and perform in the show might have it.

Secord is late to do the clown show, and Malcolm overhears Bigelow threatening his job if he doesn’t make it. Already guilty about spilling the beans to Blake, Malcolm puts on the clown suit and flies the plane. Unfortunately, he hasn’t flown a plane in 25 years, and he loses control of the bird. Secord puts on the rocket pack to enact a rescue, which he does, albeit with a certain amount of property damage. While Bigelow isn’t thrilled with the latter, he loves the attendant publicity, naming this new attraction “the Rocketeer.”

Peavy tracks down Secord where he crash landed, and they get away from what they think is the press, but is actually Valentine and his goons.

Secord goes to the set of Sinclair’s movie to tell Blake about the rocket, but he accidentally knocks over a fake wall before saying he’s there to see Blake. Sinclair angrily has Blake fired for this (it’s supposed to be a closed set), but then he overhears Secord telling Blake about his new find. Blake doesn’t want to hear it, and storms off. Sinclair tracks her down and rescinds his firing of her, and also asks her out to dinner at the South Seas Club (which is owned by Valentine).

Lothar goes to Bigelow to find out who the Rocketeer is, killing him when he’s done. Hughes, meanwhile, has learned that the wreckage the feds recovered isn’t his rocket. (“Congratulations, gentlemen—thanks to the diligence of the FBI, this particular vacuum cleaner will not fall into the wrong hands.”) The feds go to question Bigelow, but it’s too late. However, they see the impression of the address he wrote down for Lothar—which is Secord and Peavy’s house. Lothar is already there, beating the crap out of Secord and Peavy. When the feds show up, there’s a massive shootout. But the feds don’t cover the rear of the house for some odd reason, so all three manage to escape, Lothar with Peavy’s specs, Secord and Peavy with the actual rocket.

Valentine sends his goons to the Bull Dog, as it’s a popular pilot hangout, to try to find Secord and the rocket. Meanwhile, Sinclair takes Blake to dinner at the South Seas. Valentine is peeved that he’s too busy romancing some dame, but Sinclair explains that it’s Secord’s girlfriend, and he will get Secord’s location out of her with his charm and wit and good looks. Back at the Bull Dog, the goons get Blake’s rooming house number from where Secord (rather stupidly) wrote it on the wall next to the diner pay phone. But the girl who answers the phone reveals that Blake is at dinner with Sinclair. The goons are not happy about this, as they think Sinclair is pulling a fast one on Valentine. Two of them stay behind while two others go to the South Seas.

The pilots are able to overpower the two remaining thugs, and Secord uses the rocket pack to get to the South Seas ahead of the other two. He manages to get Blake away from Sinclair to warn her to get to safety, but then all hell breaks loose when Lothar recognizes Secord. The club is shot to ribbons, Secord flies all around the club in the rocket pack, doing even more damage, and then Sinclair is able to kidnap Blake (who only doesn’t run away because she sees Secord in the rocket pack).

Blake gets away from Sinclair by being a better actor than him and fooling him with a seductive act long enough to hit him on the head with a vase. (His own attempts to seduce her fail because he keeps using lines from his movies, and Blake has seen all of them.) She finds a secret room and discovers that Sinclair is actually working for the Nazis. Sinclair and Lothar find her in the secret room and she’s back to being a hostage.

Valentine calls Secord on Sinclair’s orders and tells him that, if he wants to see Blake alive again, he’ll bring the rocket to the Griffith Observatory.

Secord is then taken by the feds to Hughes, who already got Peavy. (Hughes is impressed with Peavy’s creation of a helmet to gain control of the rocket.) Secord is more than happy to turn the rocket over—after he rescues Blake. Hughes and the feds refuse. The Nazis are also trying to develop a personal rocket pack, and they think someone in Hollywood is a Nazi agent employing Valentine. Secord realizes that it’s Sinclair, and he escapes (using a model of Hughes’s Spruce Goose to get away, prompting the inventor to mutter, “That son of a bitch will fly!”).

Using the rocket pack, Secord flies to Griffith. He tells Valentine that Sinclair is a Nazi, which doesn’t make the gangster happy—he’s a criminal, but he’s an American criminal, dagnabbit!—and he turns on Sinclair. However, Sinclair has a platoon of German soldiers and a zeppelin (the one from the newsreel) up his sleeve.

However, the feds followed Secord, and a big-ass gunfight breaks out, with the mobsters and feds on one side (the smile Valentine gives one of the feds when the latter realizes that they’re on the same side is priceless) and the Nazis on the other. Sinclair gets away with Blake on the zeppelin, and Secord flies up to try to effect a rescue. He manages to defeat Lothar, but Sinclair has a gun to Blake’s head, and so Secord hands over the rocket pack—but not before removing the chewed gum that’s blocking a fuel leak. Sinclair flies away only to immolate himself on burning fuel. Secord and Blake are rescued from the zeppelin by Hughes and Peavy in one of the former’s tiny planes.

The next day, Sinclair is mourned as a victim of an attempt at Nazi sabotage. Hughes thanks Secord by giving him a brand-new Gee Bee to fly in the nationals. Blake also has a present for Peavy: the specs for the rocket pack, which she nabbed from Sinclair’s secret room before she was re-captured.

“I could kill you and feed your pink ass to the sharks!”

The PhantomWritten by Jeffrey Boam
Directed by Simon Wincer
Produced by Alan Ladd Jr. and Robert Evans
Original release date: June 7, 1996

A group of treasure hunters arrive at the jungle island of Bengalla in 1938. They’ve kidnapped a local boy to serve as guide as they drive down a dirt road and across a rickety bridge. Their theft of a silver skull is interrupted by the Phantom, whose presence is a surprise to Quill, the thieves’ leader, as he killed the Phantom years earlier.

The Phantom manages to capture most of the thieves, and rescue the boy, but Quill gets away with the skull. As they fight, the Phantom sees that Quill has the spider-web tattoo of the Sengh Brotherhood, the ancient order of pirates whose actions led to the creation of the Phantom twenty generations ago. Believed to be immortal, the mantle of the Phantom is actually passed down from father to son. (Quill killed the current Phantom’s father, who was the 20th.)

Diana Palmer returns home to New York from an adventure in the Yukon only to see that her uncle and aunt are throwing a dinner party for charity. Her uncle, Dave Palmer, runs a newspaper, and he’s investigating a businessman named Xander Drax, who has suspicious ties.

The most recent clue is a spider-web symbol that relates to searches into occult matters that Drax is making at the local library. Drax denies these charges, though the elder Palmer shares them with the mayor and police commissioner. (He doesn’t know that the latter is in cahoots with Drax.) His niece offers to travel to Bengalla to investigate further, as he can’t stay away from the paper that long.

Palmer boards a sea plane, which is hijacked near Bengalla by Sala, a woman in Drax’s employ. She kidnaps Palmer and takes her to one of Drax’s boats, where Quill and Sala both question her.

The Phantom learns of Palmer’s kidnapping from British Captain Horton, an ally of his who publicly denies the Phantom’s existence. But the Phantom seems to know Palmer personally.

With the help of the boy Quill suborned as a guide, the Phantom finds the boat and rescues Palmer, though she carries her own weight, too. They escape on a plane, but are forced to crash it when gunfire punctures a fuel line. They go the rest of the way to the Phantom’s secret headquarters on horseback, where they meet Horton. Palmer shows them the spider-web image, and they realize that it’s the Sengh Brotherhood they’re after.

The skull Quill stole at the beginning is one of three—the others are a gold skull and a jade one. When put together, they have immense power. The Phantom can’t let Drax or the Sengh Brotherhood get their hands on them. But the skulls have been lost for centuries.

Horton sees that Palmer makes it back to New York safely, and the Phantom removes his mask and hood and travels to New York on his own as Kit Walker. Palmer and Walker went to college together, but he left suddenly when his father died, and he had to take over the “family business.” (That cover story is both the truth and nowhere near the whole truth.) Palmer seems to have gotten over Walker.

Another of Palmer’s suitors, a bored rich kid named Jimmy Wells, recalls seeing a jade skull at a local museum when he was a kid, and sure enough, the skull is there. Walker is about to take it when Drax shows up and takes it for himself. Two of the skulls together will point to the third, and when Drax puts the silver and jade ones together, they fire a laser on a map that hits the Devil’s Vortex.

Keeping Palmer as a hostage, Drax sends Quill off with Walker to question him as to his interest in the skulls, but Walker is able to get away and change into his Phantom outfit. He stays one step ahead of Drax’s people, but Drax himself makes it to the docks (it helps that he has a police escort thanks to the corrupt commissioner) and flies away on a sea plane. The Phantom hitches a ride on a pontoon until they arrive at an island in the Devil’s Vortex.

That island is the secret headquarters of the Sengh Bortherhood. They have the gold skull, and the leader, Kabai Sengh, has no interest in a partnership with Drax when he can just take what he wants. He only listens to Drax for as long as he does because Quill is part of the brotherhood. (The brotherhood’s ill treatment of Palmer leads Sala to switch sides.) Kabai Sengh also claims that they need a fourth skull to control it, which is news to Drax.

The Phantom has been tracking them, and ambushes the group. A battle ensues, with both sides being badly hurt, and Kabai Sengh tossed into shark-infested waters. But Drax manages to put all three skulls together. However, he can barely control the power, because he doesn’t have the fourth skull—the Phantom, however, does, as it’s the skull on his trademark ring. He uses it to zap the three skulls, and they explode, killing Drax and destroying the Sengh Brotherhood’s stronghold.

He tells Palmer his origin story, but she herself figures out that the Phantom is Walker. (It’s not like it isn’t obvious, since he has the same voice and cheekbones and jawline.) Walker claims he can only reveal his secret to the woman he wishes to marry, and Palmer wonders what he will do if the woman says no.

Saying neither yes nor no, she buggers off with Sala in a plane, leaving the 21st Phantom to gallop off on his horse.

“How do I look?” “Like a hood ornament.”

Both these movies have a great deal in common, besides being live-action adaptations of comic characters. They both take place in 1938, they both have charismatic stars with movie-star good looks, as it were, whose careers weren’t quite what they had hoped after they took these roles. And they both do a superb job of finding actors who don’t look at all out of place in the era, as you could easily see the likes of Treat Williams or Alan Arkin or Timothy Dalton or Bill Smitrovich or Paul Sorvino (who was pretty much born to wear a pinstripe suit and hat and wield a Tommy gun) or Kristy Swanson in a pre-World War II flick.

But The Rocketeer is an eminently enjoyable movie, whereas The Phantom is as forgettable as its slogan (“slam evil”? seriously, guys?) is doofy.

Screenwriters Bilson and De Meo (who also worked on the underappreciated 1990 Flash TV series) and director Johnston do a fine job of channeling the era while still keeping a modern sensibility about it. The characters use some period slang, and Terry O’Quinn and Tiny Ron both do superb jobs of channeling Howard Hughes and Rondo Hatton (who made a career out of playing big thugs like Lothar—Ron was also made up to look like Hatton), and Dalton is the perfect person to play a swashbuckling actor with a dark side. (Sinclair was based on Errol Flynn, specifically the version of Flynn portrayed in Charles Higham‘s 1980 unauthorized biography, which wasn’t debunked until after this film was written.)

Best of all, though, is that The Rocketeer is fun. The easy camaraderie among the pilots, the tense confrontations between Sinclair and Valentine, the struggles of Blake to make it in the world she loves, and just the straight-up adventure of it all—it’s a delight from start to finish. In fact, the only real flaw is the way Secord treats Blake. I totally get what he sees in her, but it’s not really clear why she continues to see him, especially the way he constantly puts her career down. I mean, yeah, 1938, but still, she can probably do better.

Jeffrey Boam and Simon Wincer have much less luck with their interpretation of the Phantom. The dialogue is lifeless—I struggled mightily to find a worthwhile quote to headline that movie’s summary—and the performances are a colossal waste of a bunch of fine actors. Williams in particular spends the entire movie half-shouting in an even tone, making it sound like he’s performing the film by reading off cue cards for people whose hearing aids have broken. Patrick McGoohan is an extra-special waste, as every time he showed up, I had forgotten he was in the film—it takes a particular talent to make you forget all about a Patrick McGoohan performance, but Wincer managed it, and that’s not a compliment. Smitrovich is excellent as always, but he really only gets two good scenes before he’s shoved aside for his niece.

The good news is that Swanson is the star of the show, as Palmer holds her own, not settling to be just the hostage. (The one way in which Phantom is superior to Rocketeer, as Blake spends the entire movie being the victim of other characters’ whims, only taking charge once, and that victory is short-lived when Sinclair and Lothar re-capture her.) In addition, Catherine Zeta Jones is having a grand old time as Sala, but the character’s heel-turn is a bit too fast and unconvincing. Having said that, while I still have absolutely no desire to see a sequel with the Phantom, I’d love to watch the spinoff movie about Palmer and Sala flying off and having adventures and making men look dumb.

And the main reason why I’m in no rush to see the sequel that never was going to happen anyhow is because holy crap, Billy Zane is dull. He has the look of the Phantom down, and he moves with an effortless grace that works perfectly for the role. But his line readings are deadly dull—not helped by the lines themselves being just as deadly dull—and he radiates absolutely no presence as the Phantom or as Walker.

Bill Campbell, for all that Secord is kind of an ass, is at least well-meaning and earnest. He wants to fly more than anything, and he obviously enjoys the heck out of being the Rocketeer. He actually takes charge of the movie, even though Arkin pretty much steals the show as the delightfully eccentric Peevy. (His babbling about engineering with O’Quinn’s Hughes is one of the high points.)

To this day, I don’t understand why The Rocketeer wasn’t more popular. It has done better as a cult hit than it did as a theatrical release, but we’re still waiting for a new Rocketeer film two and a half decades later. However, I have no trouble understanding why there hasn’t been a new Phantom film. The character’s white-savior origins are dodgy enough (the movie mostly avoid this by doing as little with the natives as possible, limited to one bit of assistance), and this version does nothing to mitigate that or give you something else to distract you from it. It just sits there, lifelessly.

We’re taking next week off for Thanksgiving, but we’ll be back on the 1st of December with two more 1990s adaptations, Barb Wire and Judge Dredd.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/11/17/38-special-the-rocketeer-and-the-phantom/feed/50“Everybody comes home” — Star Trek Discovery’s “Into the Forest I Go”https://www.tor.com/2017/11/13/everybody-comes-home-star-trek-discoverys-into-the-forest-i-go/
https://www.tor.com/2017/11/13/everybody-comes-home-star-trek-discoverys-into-the-forest-i-go/#commentsMon, 13 Nov 2017 17:00:09 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=314016And so Discovery reaches its “mid-season finale,” a recent phenomenon of television to make sure that people tune in for the last episode before a break, and also to reassure folks that yes, we’ll be back in a few months, don’t go away and never come back, pretty please. While it’s true you never saw […]]]>

And so Discovery reaches its “mid-season finale,” a recent phenomenon of television to make sure that people tune in for the last episode before a break, and also to reassure folks that yes, we’ll be back in a few months, don’t go away and never come back, pretty please. While it’s true you never saw this in the old days, said old days involved somewhere between three and ten sources of new programming at most. Now there’s hundreds. One can’t really blame the producers for being gun-shy about losing viewers because they took a few weeks off.

Anyhow, the storyline comes full circle, putting Burnham back on the bridge of the ship of the dead, with a chance at redemption for getting her captain killed. And it’s quite a ride.

First of all, though, mea culpa: I was wrong, and every single person (practically) in the comments was right last week. Admiral Cornwell is, in fact, alive. Derp.

This is one of several things that thicken the Klingon part of the plot. It’s very unlikely that L’Rell didn’t know that Cornwell was still alive, since she was right there in the room with her. So she kept her alive for a reason. And her response to Tyler in the brig was not what you would expect a prisoner to say to one of her jailers, to wit, that she’ll protect him.

Just in general, it was good to see that there was an impact on Tyler being a Klingon prisoner for seven months. His recovery always seemed way too easy, and now we know that it was all one big-ass bit of denial. Just one look at L’Rell, and he’s catatonic. That’s someone who was very good at fooling himself and whatever doctors talked to him after Lorca rescued him, but who is also very much not recovered yet. (There’s also the casting issue that hangs over everything—is Tyler really Voq?) But since Discovery never makes it back to base, he won’t get the help he needs right off…

And yes, let’s talk about that ending. Sigh. Could they possibly have telegraphed it more? Stamets declares it’s his last jump, he will never do it again, he declares his love for Culber, so of course, it’s going to go horribly wrong. (“Just one last case before I retire,” said the cop right before he got shot……) Besides, we need to make sure people come back in January (see first paragraph of this review), so we desperately need a cliffhanger!

How we got there is fascinating, as we see Lorca inputting a new course at the last minute rather than calling one out. We already know that Cornwell has it in for Lorca, and she’s now back at starbase recovering from her wounds, and she’s likely to be talking to some other admirals once she’s walking around again. Lorca has already refused to mount a rescue mission on his own—pretty much the only time in the seven episodes he’s been in when he could be bothered to wait for orders or pay attention to them when he got them, up to and including this episode—and now he’s facing the consequences of that.

This is particularly amusing because, prior to this, Lorca’s been acting like an honest-to-gosh captain instead of a devious person with an agenda. He’s actually very earnest-sounding when he convinces Stamets to do the 136 jumps that will enable them to get enough sensor readings to penetrate the Klingon cloak. You start to believe that the war is an aberration, and Lorca really wants to get Discovery back to its proper purpose as an explorer. And yet, there he is at the end sabotaging their return to base.

Not that he isn’t willing to disobey orders to serve his own ends and hope that those ends justify his rather dodgy means. He does so earlier in the episode, but that’s a more standard Trek-ian disobeying of orders. They need to save the Pahvans, they have a chance to penetrate the Klingon cloak, so Lorca hedges his bets by warping to the starbase rather than use the spore drive. Once they figure it out, back to Pahvo they go.

Of course, yes, they do need to save the Pahvans, but here’s the thing, and it’s something the episode maddeningly does not address: the Pahvans are the ones who set this up in the first place. They called Kol there and pretty much forced the confrontation. So why did they do it? What do they get out of it? And why weren’t they involved in what happened next? Aside from a quickie mention by Saru, the Pahvans’ nature and needs and personality weren’t even addressed. They’re just straw victims for our heroes to save, but there has to be more to it than that. That was a plot ball that was rather aggressively dropped.

What I liked best about this episode, though, is that our heroes were clever, and they triumphed for that reason, not because their enemy was stupid. Kol’s actions in the episode were completely in character, but they weren’t idiotic. His tactical decisions all made perfect sense in context, he just didn’t do as good a job of predicting what Lorca would do as Lorca did predicting what Kol would do.

The fight between Burnham and Kol was kinda standard-issue climax-y stuff, but it worked. It takes a while to do 136 jumps, and Burnham needed to do something to keep the Klingons busy, and challenging Kol would do it. Getting to retrieve Georgiou’s insignia was a nice touch. (I also like the idea that the insignia also serves the same function as dogtags do in the contemporary military.)

My favorite moment, though, was Kol’s response to the universal translator. Klingons are offended by a translator as it’s another example of the Federation subsuming Klingons’ identity and uniqueness into a homogenous whole. It’s a nifty little low-key retcon. Very often, the only language that never seems to translate is Klingon—see, for example, DS9‘s “The Way of the Warrior,” where Worf is constantly translating bits of Klingon for the rest of the crew, not to mention the scene of Uhura frantically trying to fake the language in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country—and that one line of dialogue from Kol explains why. It makes sense that Klingons have resisted allowing their language to be assimilated into the UT, even when they later become allies of the Federation.

I also liked the fight choreography, because it was perfectly done for what it was: a delaying action. Kol’s fighting style was very much that of a toddler playing with his food: he has no expectations of defeat, and he’s in no rush to finish it, as he’s enjoying the duel, like a proper Klingon. Burnham, meanwhile, is fighting defensively. She has no expectations of victory, but she doesn’t need to win the fight, she just needs to prolong it until Discovery finishes its cloak-penetrating mission.

At the very end, Saru and Burnham exchange a couple of nods, and to my mind that wasn’t nearly enough. The lack of any kind of addressing of the effect of the events of “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” on Saru (beyond that one quickie mention) is glaring, and he and Burnham have a lot more baggage between them that this mission isn’t anywhere near enough to have dealt with.

I do like how Stamets and Culber’s relationship is handled. Lorca’s order for Stamets to get a physical—meant only as a way of excusing their not using the spore drive to get to Starbase 46—means that Culber now knows exactly what the spore drive is doing to Stamets. More to the point, Culber know exactly how much Stamets has been keeping from him (aided by yet another bit of word vomit from Tilly, who reveals that there have been side effects also). Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz play it perfectly.

And now Discovery is—lost in space! Sigh. Let’s hope they don’t overplay the trying-to-get-home theme, as we had enough of that for seven years on Voyager. But we have to wait until January to find out.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/11/13/everybody-comes-home-star-trek-discoverys-into-the-forest-i-go/feed/121“God’s gonna sit this one out” — The Punisher (1989), The Punisher (2004), and Punisher: War Zonehttps://www.tor.com/2017/11/10/gods-gonna-sit-this-one-out-the-punisher-1989-the-punisher-2004-and-punisher-war-zone/
https://www.tor.com/2017/11/10/gods-gonna-sit-this-one-out-the-punisher-1989-the-punisher-2004-and-punisher-war-zone/#commentsFri, 10 Nov 2017 17:00:50 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=313192The Punisher first appeared in the comics in 1974 in an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man. He showed up as a guest star in many comics over the next twelve years before getting a miniseries by Steven Grant and Mike Zeck in 1986 which was a huge hit. That led to a slew of Punisher […]]]>

The Punisher first appeared in the comics in 1974 in an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man. He showed up as a guest star in many comics over the next twelve years before getting a miniseries by Steven Grant and Mike Zeck in 1986 which was a huge hit. That led to a slew of Punisher comic books, particularly in the late 1980s and 1990s when the more violent heroes (see also Wolverine and Ghost Rider and Lobo) were becoming more popular.

That popularity also led to a movie with Dolph Lundgren in 1989 that was not much of a hit and barely got released. When superhero movies took off in the early 2000s, another shot was taken with Thomas Jane in 2004, and then another with Ray Stevenson in 2008.

The Punisher was originally a Vietnam veteran named Frank Castle. He came home from the war only to see his family murdered by mobsters. (In Marvel, they were called the Maggia, their version of the Mafia.) This sent him over the edge, and now Castle goes out as the Punisher, using his combat skills to kill bad guys, making him something of an antihero. His initial appearance has him going after Spider-Man, who has been accused of murdering Norman Osborn.

The character’s backstory was very obviously inspired by Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan, a.k.a. the Executioner. However, while Bolan went on after wiping out the Mafia to become a government agent in adventures that are still published to this day (your humble rewatcher has actually written two of them…), the Punisher became a vigilante, whose level of sanity has varied depending on who’s writing him.

The first movie was produced by New World, who were the owners of Marvel Comics at the time. However, New World’s financial issues led to a rather scattershot release—it debuted in Europe in 1989, not actually showing up in U.S. theatres until 1991, and that only in very limited release. Starring Dolph Lundgren, who had made a name for himself as Rocky’s Russian opponent in Rocky IV, the movie changed his backstory to that of an ex-cop, and had the main bad guys be Yakuza rather that Mafia. (They filmed in Sydney, and it was probably easier to get Japanese actors anyhow…)

Marvel had a deal with Artisan Studios to produce films based on some of their characters, and the first (and last, as Artisan was bought by Lionsgate and shuttered) was a new take on the Punisher. The character was moved to Florida because it was cheap to film there. The movie did decently enough at the box office (despite awful reviews) to warrant a sequel, but creative issues led to the “sequel” being the completely unrelated Punisher: War Zone with Ray Stevenson replacing Thomas Jane in the title role. Both the 21st-century takes used the comics as more direct inspiration than the 1989 film, with Jane’s movie based on Punisher: Year One and The Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank, while Stevenson’s used several elements from the comics, notably the characters of Jigsaw and Microchip.

None of the movies were critical successes, and all three were plagued by production and release difficulties. The character would next be seen on screen as part of Marvel’s Netflix slate, first in the second season of Daredevil (a meeting partly inspired by the Punisher’s appearance during Frank Miller’s first run on DD in the 1980s) and then in his own series, which will debut next week.

“What the fuck do you call 125 murders in five years?” “Work in progress.”

The PunisherWritten by Boaz Yakin
Directed by Mark Goldblatt
Produced by Robert Mark Kamen
Original release date: October 5, 1989

After five years, Dino Morretti has been acquitted of the murder of Detective Frank Castle and his wife and children. There’s also a vigilante known as “the Punisher,” who has been killing mobsters for the past five years. Lieutenant Jeff Berkowitz—Castle’s former partner—believes that Castle isn’t dead and that he’s the Punisher. But there’s no evidence as to who the Punisher is, even though he leaves knives and shell casings at every scene and forensic science did actually exist in the 1980s. Those knives and shell casings are in a box on Berkowtiz’s desk—why they’re there instead of bagged in evidence is left as an exercise for the viewer.

Berkowtiz is, in fact, correct, as Castle has been living in the sewers, waging a one-person war on criminals. He’s killed more than a hundred mobsters in five years, and he adds to that count by killing Morretti and his thugs and also blowing up his house.

At this point, Berkowitz is something of a joke in the department, since nobody else believes that Castle is alive. But Castle helped get Berkowitz out of alcoholism and Berkowitz owes him. Berkowitz explains this to Detective Sam Leary, who pretty much bullies her way into being Berkowitz’s new partner by saying that she also believes that Castle is the Punisher. She also figures out that Castle’s hideout maybe is underneath the city, the one place in five years Berkowitz hasn’t looked.

There are two responses to this razing of the local criminal elements. The first is Gianni Franco coming out of retirement to unite what’s left of the Mafia families. His first act after doing so is to bring in a huge batch of heroin, but Castle screws that up by massacring the mobsters and sellers and leaving the dope for the cops.

The second is Lady Tanaka of the Yakuza deciding to move in and take over. Franco refuses her offer, and they go to war. The first salvo of the war is Tanaka kidnapping the children of Franco and all his lieutenants and holding them for ransom.

Castle finds out about the Yakuza moving in from his snitch, a drunken ex-actor named Shake, who always speaks in rhyme for no compellingly good reason. He trashes one of their casinos by way of making it clear that they’re not welcome.

Tanaka has no intention of ransoming the kids back to the mobsters, preferring to sell them into slavery. She also kills the mobsters who show up to pay the ransom. Franco, however, has refused to play ball, so he avoids the death spree for now.

Castle attacks one of the Yakuza hideouts, but gets his ass handed to him. Tanaka tortures him and Shake both, but he manages to escape and find out where the kids are being held. Castle enacts a rescue, involving lots of gunplay and a stolen city bus, and gets all but one of the kids away—the exception is Franco’s son Tommy. However, his purloined bus is stopped by a police blockade, and Castle is forced to surrender.

Berkowitz confronts Castle in his cell, wanting to know why he faked his death, why he didn’t come to Berkowitz, why he went crazy and killed over a hundred people. Castle is less than forthcoming, and Berkowitz leaves in disgust and resigns from the force. (Hilariously right when his star should be back on the rise, since his crazy theory was proven correct.)

The transport truck bringing Castle to prison is ambushed by Franco’s people. Franco wants Castle’s help in getting Tommy back, and he’s taken Berkowitz prisoner as leverage. Castle agrees.

Castle and Franco storm the Yakuza headquarters. Berkowitz frees himself from Franco’s dumb-as-posts thugs and calls in the cops, but by the time they arrive, Castle and Franco have killed, basically, everyone. Tanaka holds a knife to Tommy’s throat and tells Franco to eat his gun, which he’s about to do to save his son, but then a badly beat-up and wounded Castle bursts in and throws a knife at Tanaka’s head. Franco repays Castle by threatening to kill him, but Castle manages to stop him—with unexpected help from Tommy, who doesn’t want to see his father kill someone. However after Castle kills Franco, Tommy threatens to kill Castle, but the kid can’t pull the trigger. Castle tells Tommy that he’d better not become like his father and disappears just before Berkowitz enters.

“Good memories can save your life.”

The PunisherWritten by Jonathan Hensleigh and Michael France
Directed by Jonathan Hensleigh
Produced by Avi Arad and Gale Anne Hurd
Original release date: April 16, 2004

In Tampa, Mickey Duka is buying arms from a German arms dealer named Otto Krieg. Along for the ride is Bobby Saint, the son of Howard Saint, a mob boss. Bobby is fronting some of the money for the sale. The FBI shows up and shoots Krieg dead. Then Bobby rather stupidly raises his gun while surrounded by dozens of armed federal agents, and gets himself shot to pieces.

Krieg and Bobby’s bodies are taken away, and we find out that “Krieg” is really Agent Frank Castle, ex-Delta Force, on his last undercover operation before transferring to a cushy desk assignment in the London office. Castle is looking forward to spending time with his family. To that end, he goes with his wife and kid to Puerto Rico for a family reunion.

Saint is livid at the death of his son, and he expends tremendous resources to learn that Krieg was really a federal agent, and also still alive. He sends Bobby’s twin brother John along with his chief enforcer Quentin Glass to Puerto Rico, where they massacre Castle’s entire family, culminating in running over his wife and son. They shoot Castle twice and blow up the pier they shot him on, but Castle survived, went limp, and the explosion blew him out to sea, where he was rescued by a local fisher.

He heals up over five months and returns to Tampa. Amazingly, despite being shot twice, he shows no scarring on his torso when he goes shirtless. (Which he does, y’know, a lot.) He is displeased that the FBI has made no arrests in the murder of his entire extended family.

Castle moves into a shitty apartment that he fills almost entirely with weaponry. The other three apartments in the building are rented by Joan—a diner server who has had a series of abusive relationships—Dave, and Bumpo. The other three are fascinated by Castle’s routine, which involves stockpiling weapons and armoring his car.

Duka is bailed out by Saint, and then gives Saint the name of the buyer, which is what led Saint to Castle. However, five months later, Duka is out working for Saint, still, with no mention of his arrest on federal charges for gun smuggling. Anyhow, Castle kidnaps Duka and fake-tortures him. Duka has little love for the Saint family, so he caves pretty quickly and becomes Castle’s inside man. Duka also reveals that Saint only wanted Castle dead—it was his wife, Livia, who wanted Castle’s entire family to die.

One of Joan’s exes shows up, and Castle scares him off. In return, Joan invites him to join her, Bump, and Dave for dinner, which Castle is reluctant to accept.

Using Duka’s information, Castle tails Saint, Livia, and Saint’s lieutenants, learning that Glass is a closeted homosexual. He sets events in motion to make Saint think that Glass and Livia are having an affair.

Castle also trashes one of Saint’s money laundering operations (stealing some money for himself and donating more money to people on the nearby street) and then one of the transfers to a pair of Cubans for whom Saint launders money. The Cubans are not happy and Saint isn’t either. Saint sends two different assassins after Castle, both of whom Castle takes down, one of whom trashes his car (Castle just takes the assassin’s car, a green ’68 Plymouth Satellite), the other of whom nearly kills Castle. His three neighbors nurse him back to health.

Glass and John arrive with some thugs. Joan hides the still-badly-injured Castle while Bumpo and Dave stall the bad guys. They torture Dave, but he doesn’t give him up. Castle is touched (and surprised) by the consideration, and Dave says they’re family. Bumpo takes Dave to the hospital.

Saint finds out about the nonexistent affair between Glass and Livia thanks to Castle’s machinations, aided by Duka. Saint kills both Glass and Livia and then puts out a reward on Castle. Saving them the trouble of finding him, Castle ambushes a gathering at Saint’s club. After killing all his subordinates, Castle confronts Saint, tells him how he tricked him into thinking his gay lieutenant was having an affair with his devoted wife, and then burns him alive while dragging him from a moving car.

Castle considers killing himself, but decides to continue punishing the guilty. He moves out of the apartment, leaving behind a crapton of Saint’s money for his three neighbors.

“Let me put you out of my misery.”

Punisher: War ZoneWritten by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway and Nick Santora
Directed by Lexi Alexander
Produced by Gale Anne Hurd
Original release date: December 5, 2008

Mob boss Gaitano Cesare is elderly and dying, but he still runs the Mafia in the New York area. He holds a dinner party at his palatial mansion, which has to be either in Westchester County, out on Long Island, or in New Jersey. I mention this only because there are two NYPD detectives, Soap and Safiotti, watching the house, and no matter where it is, it’s out of their jurisdictions. (There are no mansions like that within the city limits. Trust me.)

Castle attacks the house and kills most of those inside. The only ones he misses are Billy “the Beaut” Russotti and his lieutenants. Safiotti gets the draw on Castle, but all he does is tell Castle where Russotti probably went, and then he punches himself in the face, reporting to Soap that Castle subdued him.

Russotti is in a bottle recycling plant, where Castle attacks him and his people, leaving more dead bodies. Russotti himself falls into a bottle crusher, and somehow survives, but his face is a mess, his prided good looks ruined. He takes on the nickname Jigsaw and swears revenge on Castle.

Castle has other problems, however. One of the mobsters he killed at Cesare’s was an undercover federal agent, Nicky Donatelli. Castle is devastated, and considers hanging up his skull shirt. His armorer, Microchip, tries to talk him out of it in his below-the-subway headquarters, eventually convincing him that he should at least go after Russotti. His attempt to make reparations to the Donatelli family is met with disgust and rejection by Donatelli’s widow, Angela.

Donatelli’s partner, Agent Paul Budiansky, wants to know why the NYPD hasn’t been able to capture Castle. Captain Ross assigns him to the “Punisher Task Force,” which consists of Soap in the basement.

Castle learns from Carlos Cruz, a friend of Microchip’s, that “Jigsaw” has hired three new guys who do a lot of legwork for him. Castle tracks them down, kills two of them, then extracts from the third that Jigsaw plans to go after Angela and Grace Donatelli before killing him, too.

However, Budiansky manages to capture Castle, mostly because the latter pulls his punches when engaging in fisticuffs with a federal agent. At Castle’s urging, Budiansky and Soap send a patrol car to the Donatelli home, but they arrive after Jigsaw and his crazy-ass brother James (a.k.a. Loony-Bin Jim; Jigsaw broke him out of the asylum) have already gotten there, and they kill the two officers. When the two don’t report in, Budiansky has Soap drive him and the handcuffed Castle to the Donatelli house, then Budiansky goes in, leaving Soap with Castle.

Soap, of course, frees Castle and he goes in to remonstrate with the bad guys. Castle shoots one thug in the face who’s left, to Budiansky’s annoyance. Castle takes Angela and Grace to his underground lair for protection while Jigsaw and Jimmy are taken into custody.

Jigsaw has an ace up his sleeve, though—he was providing port security for the Russian mob, who are bringing a biological weapon into the U.S. to sell to terrorists in Queens. They give up the full details, enabling Homeland Security to capture the Russian mobster, Christa Bulat, and impound the weapons. In exchange, Jigsaw and Jimmy get immunity, and also a police file on Castle’s known associates. (By the way, no law-enforcement agency would ever give up a police file to a civilian, not even as part of a plea bargain.)

Armed with this information, Jigsaw kidnaps Microchip. When Castle doesn’t hear from him, he goes to check up on his friend, leaving Cruz to watch the Donatellis. Jimmy breaks into Castle’s hideout and kidnaps Angela and Grace, leaving Cruz for dead.

A livid Castle teams up with Budiansky, who wants to rescue the Donatellis. Jigsaw’s immunity agreement ties his hands legally, but Budiansky instead lets Bulat’s father know where Jigsaw can be found. While Jigsaw’s people are tied up in a shootout with the Russian mob, Castle is able to go in and rescue the Donatellis, and also kill both Jigsaw and Jimmy.

Angela tells Castle that she and her husband used to argue about Castle all the time—Nicky thought that Castle was one of the good guys. One wonders if he still thought that as he died…

“Oh my God—now I have brains splattered all over me.”

It’s interesting to watch these three takes on the Punisher because—while all three, truly, are the same film—it’s instructive to see how the details differ, and what works and what doesn’t.

Most fundamentally, the movies improve each time in terms of casting the lead. Dolph Lundgren is, in a word, terrible. He grimaces a lot and mutters his lines and stares blankly into space. Thomas Jane actually manages to make Castle a person in the opening parts of the movie, making the blank affect he has as the Punisher much more effective, because we actually see the change. Even so, though, Jane’s character reminds me a lot of the character the Punisher is based on, Mack Bolan, who’s pretty much an automaton, and spectacularly boring. (I do like how Jane delivers the monologue about the meaning of the word “upset” during his brief conversation with his old FBI partner and their boss on the subject of the lack of arrests for the Castle family massacre.)

It’s left to Ray Stevenson to actually bring nuance to the role. Stevenson’s facial expressions are subtle and pained. You can see the agony of his life etched on his face, from the visit to his family’s grave to his realization that he killed a federal agent to his unwillingness to let Budiansky go down the same dark road he’s on.

Lundgren, at least, is in good company, as his movie is chock full of terrible acting, the only exception being Lou Gossett Jr., who actually decided to make Berkowitz a character rather than a caricature or cliché. Nancy Everhard (who we just saw as Christa Klein in The Trial of the Incredible Hulk) doesn’t elevate Leary beyond Person Berkowtiz Talks To, Barry Otto’s Shake is embarrassing, Kim Miyori is a tiresome stereotype as Tanaka, and Jeroen Krabbe can’t even be arsed to manage a tiresome stereotype as Franco. (I’ve never understood why anybody ever hires Krabbe to act, as I’ve seen no evidence that he’s capable of it.)

The villains, sadly, don’t get much better. John Travolta as Saint is better than Krabbe, but that’s a low bar to clear, and mostly Saint comes across as a low-rent version of the villains Travolta played in Face/Off and Broken Arrow. And Dominic West leaves no piece of scenery unchewed as Jigsaw. Much like Jack Nicholson before him, West is far more effective as Russotti the gangster than he is after the transformative experience that turns him into Jigsaw, at which point he devolves into a giggling goon (not helped by a weak-tea psychotic performance by Doug Hutchison as Jimmy).

It’s too bad, as West is capable of much better than this (cf. The Wire, 300, John Carter, etc.). But then, so is most of the cast, which is of a higher overall caliber than the other two—Colin Salmon, Wayne Knight, Julie Benz—but none of them turn in their best work here. I do appreciate the effort West and Benz made to put on Noo Yawk accents—they’re even pretty consistent, even if West’s is sometimes a bit labored.

We get three different origins for the Punisher in these three movies, with the first two adding a law-enforcement background to Castle’s military past (in the comics—and also in Netflix—he went straight from the military to his family being killed). Jane’s movie, at least, lets us see Castle with his family and his wife and kid are people with dialogue instead of dewy-eyed memories, which adds to the character’s tragedy, and makes us invest in Castle a bit more.

What I find most fascinating about these three movies is that each one gets closer and closer to the comic book source material, and it’s the one that hews most closely to the comics, War Zone, that is the strongest movie (of, admittedly, a weak bunch). There’s a lesson in that, methinks. In War Zone, Castle’s family is killed in Central Park after witnessing a gangland murder, just like in the comics, and the characters of Microchip and Jigsaw are also from Marvel. To be fair, Jane’s movie also pulls plenty of elements from the comics, in particular Joan, Bumpo, and Dave, who are brilliantly performed by Rebecca Romijn, John Pinette, and Ben Foster.

War Zone is one of only two films that Marvel Studios produced under its Marvel Knights sub-studio—the other being Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengance. The same year as War Zone, they also put out Iron Man, which turned out to be a better harbinger of things to come from Marvel Studios.

Next week, I’ll be reviewing Netflix’s take on The Punisher with Jon Bernthal, and on this here rewatch we’ll indulge in some early-20th-century nostalgia as we look at the 1990s takes on The Rocketeer and The Phantom.

Keith R.A. DeCandido will be one of the many author guests at Philcon 2017 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey this weekend, along with guests of honor Seanan McGuire (a.k.a. Mira Grant), Bed & Breakfast, Don Maitz, and Janny Wurtz. His schedule can be found here, and he’ll also be putting in time at the eSpec Books table in the dealer room.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/11/10/gods-gonna-sit-this-one-out-the-punisher-1989-the-punisher-2004-and-punisher-war-zone/feed/39If You Want Peace, Prepare for War — Star Trek Discovery’s “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum”https://www.tor.com/2017/11/06/if-you-want-peace-prepare-for-war-star-trek-discoverys-si-vis-pacem-para-bellum/
https://www.tor.com/2017/11/06/if-you-want-peace-prepare-for-war-star-trek-discoverys-si-vis-pacem-para-bellum/#commentsMon, 06 Nov 2017 18:00:18 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=311950Discovery barrels toward its slightly-more-than-midway point, as this eighth episode moves things forward and sets up for the ninth, which will also be the “fall finale” before we get a hiatus during which lots of people will try CBS All Access for a trial period and binge the nine episodes. The episode has a lot […]]]>

Discovery barrels toward its slightly-more-than-midway point, as this eighth episode moves things forward and sets up for the ninth, which will also be the “fall finale” before we get a hiatus during which lots of people will try CBS All Access for a trial period and binge the nine episodes.

The episode has a lot of story ground to cover, and it does so in a particularly impressive fashion, moving both the Federation and Klingon plots forward. We get strong moments for pretty much the entire cast, but most notably for Saru, who has been a bit underused lately. “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” gives Doug Jones a chance to shine.

FULL DISCLOSURE: This episode was written by Kirsten Beyer. A fellow Star Trek novelist, Kirsten has been a friend and colleague of your humble reviewer for many years. She helped roast me at Shore Leave in 2009, and that same year my novel A Singular Destiny laid some groundwork for her still-ongoing series of Voyager novels that take place post-“Endgame.”

However, I’d like this episode no matter who wrote it, because it very nicely balances all its storylines, telling a good standalone story while moving things in an interesting direction, culminating in a cliffhanger that sets up the first confrontation between Discovery and T’Kuvma’s sarcophagus ship, now under Kol’s command.

The Klingon part of the story has two issues, one of which is the ongoing language issue, as the episode once again grinds to halt while we watch Mary Chieffo and Kenneth Mitchell I-think-I-can their way through endless Klingon sentences. On top of the length of time it takes, this week I finally figured out my biggest problem: the inflections are all even, so it all comes out in a somnabulent sing-songy rhythm. Now other languages have even inflections—Japanese, e.g.—but it’s usually spoken quickly enough that the rhythm of the sentences flows better.

The other issue is the sudden death of Cornwell. It’s a very anticlimactic end to the makeshift alliance that L’Rell and Cornwell form, which actually looked kinda promising.

Having said that, the machinations here are interesting, made more so by external factors. As we’ve discussed here before (and the Internet has run with pretty far), it seems that the actor who plays Tyler also played Voq. This has raised the question as to whether or not Tyler is a surgically altered Klingon agent (something already seen ten years ahead in the timeline with “Arne Darvin” in “The Trouble with Tribbles“). That, in turn, raises questions about L’Rell. Tyler’s escape involved beating the crap out of L’Rell and her being wounded. Was that part of the cover? Was that Voq taking out his frustrations on his only friend? Is Tyler a sleeper agent who doesn’t know he’s Voq? Is L’Rell telling Cornwell she wants to defect, not because she’s disenchanted with how her life in the Klingon Empire has gone as she says, but because “Tyler” hasn’t checked in, and she needs to find out what’s happened to him? Or is something else going on?

What’s great is, we’re not sure. Chieffo is doing a fine job of playing L’Rell’s plan close to the vest while still showing her strength and conflict through the Klingon makeup. (It helps that she actually speaks a familiar language with Cornwell.) I also like that Kol is not being fooled by L’Rell in the least. I’m genuinely curious as to which way this will go.

Meanwhile, back in the Federation, we’ve got three different things going on. Stamets is starting to suffer some serious ill effects from being the engine of the spore drive, including possible hallucinations (he addresses Tilly as the captain when he comes out of the drive). But he can’t report these problems to Culber or anyone else in sickbay because then they will have to report it and Stamets will be removed from duty and they don’t have the spore drive anymore. If he does report it and Culber doesn’t share it with Starfleet, it could cost the doctor his career. So Tilly and Stamets agree to monitor his condition on their own without any medical assistance. That will totally end well.

We also open the episode with something we haven’t actually seen much: bridge action! We’ve been told that Discovery is vital to the war effort, but we’ve seen very little of them fighting in the war. This is mostly a feature, not a bug (such scenes can be repetitive if one isn’t careful), but it’s still good to actually see some combat once in a while. In particular, it’s fun to see the bridge crew in action, with Lorca barking orders to Detmer, Owosekun, and Airiam, as well as new guy Rhys, who’s running tactical. (My favorite line of the episode was Lorca’s aggrieved, “Mr. Rhys, could I trouble you to fire on something?” which is a nice riff on the numerous Trek battles over the years where ships have been in the midst of hostile ships and not fired hardly at all, e.g. “Rascals.”) Sadly, all the Discovery is able to accomplish is to take out more of the enemy than the Gagarin would have by itself, as the other ship is lost. But it’s important from a story perspective to put a face on the losses, in this case Captain Kovil and his crew on the Gagarin.

And then we have the reason why Rhys is running tactical, and also the meat of the episode: Tyler has accompanied Saru and Burnham to Pahvo, a planet where all the flora is in harmony, creating constant music. There’s an organic transmitter on the planet that sends the music out into space, and Starfleet’s hope is to be able to modify that transmitter as a kind of sonar to detect cloaked Klingon ships.

That mission hits a snag when it turns out that there is life on the planet, it just takes the form of energy. Saru works to communicate with them, and he learns that the transmitter serves a similar function to probes that NASA sent out in the hopes of contacting alien life in the late 20th century, to wit, contacting alien life.

The Pahvans live in perfect harmony with their world, which proves to be the best thing ever for Saru. After spending most of the episode in agony, because he’s far more sensitive to the constant song of Pahvo than the humans, he finally communicates with the Pahvans, and it’s nirvana for him. Kelpiens like him are prey, which means he lives in a constant state of fear. When he communes with the Pahvans, for the first time in his life, he’s not afraid. It’s a heady feeling, one that leads to him destroying Burnham and Tyler’s (and presumably his own) communicators and lying to the rest of the landing party, saying that the Pahvans will help them against the Klingons—necessary, as the presence of sentient life means they need their permission to modify their stuff.

When it becomes clear that Saru is compromised, Tyler takes matters into his own hands, ordering Burnham to modify the transmitter anyhow, while Tyler distracts Saru with his total lack of harmony. Again, the rumors about who Tyler is come into play here, as Tyler expresses a particular loathing for Klingons, but is it a legit issue due to his imprisonment? Is it part of his cover? Is it Voq’s own loathing for his fellow Klingons, who (T’Kuvma and L’Rell excepted) treated him poorly due his being an albino? Or is it all just a cover to distract Saru so Burnham can complete the mission?

The episode in general has been described by many as the most Star Trek-ish episode the show has done so far—fitting, given the pedigree of its scripter—and it certainly is. We’ve got an actual honest-to-goodness landing party, we’ve got a first contact complete with many complications, and we’ve got beings of pure energy who are more than they seem.

But the best thing we get is a good look at Discovery‘s first officer. Saru is a fascinating character, an alien of a type we haven’t really seen on Trek before, and while he has indeed been underused, the ways he has been used have been superb, particularly in “Choose Your Pain,” which explained his issues with Burnham and had him figuring out that Lorca and Tyler were on the shuttle due to how they were being chased. Here we see the tragedy of his existence, and Doug Jones knocks it out of the park, showing how wonderful this is for him, to the point that he’d violate his oath and assault Burnham to keep from losing it.

One wonders how this will affect Saru’s view of Burnham, since he, too, has turned traitor, though one suspects that both Tyler and Burnham’s reports won’t throw Saru under the bus, or at the very least it will be decided that he was under an alien influence. We shall see. But will this make Saru more pleasantly inclined toward Burnham or will he resent that she took something else valuable away from him the way she took away his chance to be Georgiou’s first officer? (Something he mentioned while trying to stop her on Pahvo, but he was not himself there. We’ll see if they pick up on it.)

It’s also nice to get the reminder in Tyler and Burnham’s conversation that for Burnham, the end of the war doesn’t mean the vacation that it will probably mean for most Starfleet folks who survive it. (Tyler’s dream is to go sailing.) For her, it means going back to prison—not exactly something to look forward to, and it’s to her credit that she’s still fighting hard to end the war anyhow.

Of course, another way this episode is Trek-ish is that it is reminiscent of more than one TOS story, particularly “This Side of Paradise,” in how Saru was affected by the Pahvans, and “Arena,” in how the Pahvans are interpolating themselves into the Federation-Klingon conflict. (One could argue it’s more “Errand of Mercy,” but the Organians tried to stay out of the war, and only interfered at the very end when Kor and Kirk got too annoying. The Pahvans are jumping into the conflict unbidden much the way the Metrons did.)

Still, this is a strong episode on its own and as part of the ongoing story arc and setting up the “fall finale.”

Keith R.A. DeCandido will be one of the author guests at Philcon 2017 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey this weekend, alongside guests of honor Seanan McGuire (a.k.a. Mira Grant), Bed & Breakfast, Don Maitz, and Janny Wurtz. You can find him sometimes at the eSpec Books table in the dealer room, and he’ll also be doing programming; his full schedule is here.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/11/06/if-you-want-peace-prepare-for-war-star-trek-discoverys-si-vis-pacem-para-bellum/feed/103“Cowabunga!” — Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IIIhttps://www.tor.com/2017/11/03/cowabunga-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-ii-the-secret-of-the-ooze-and-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-iii/
https://www.tor.com/2017/11/03/cowabunga-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-ii-the-secret-of-the-ooze-and-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-iii/#commentsFri, 03 Nov 2017 16:00:55 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=311375The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been a phenomenon so long that probably nobody remembers that they started out as a parody of Marvel Comics of the 1980s, particularly those by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller. Two of the biggest things in comics in the 1980s were teenage mutants (as seen in The X-Men and […]]]>

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been a phenomenon so long that probably nobody remembers that they started out as a parody of Marvel Comics of the 1980s, particularly those by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller.

Two of the biggest things in comics in the 1980s were teenage mutants (as seen in The X-Men and The New Mutants, written by Claremont) and ninjas (as seen in Daredevil and the Wolverine and Elektra miniseries, written and/or drawn by Miller). Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created teenage mutants and also made them ninjas, and also turtles, and did them as a fairly straight black-and-white parody. (Daredevil is the primary source of parody here, as Splinter is a riff on DD’s mentor Stick, and the Foot is a play on the Hand. This has actually come full circle as a parody, since the Hand has become a major villain in Marvel’s various Netflix series.)

They became a huge multimedia hit, turned into a popular cartoon in 1987 and a series of live-action feature films in the 1990s.

The first film had trouble finding distribution, as the major studios were gun-shy of what they saw as a live-action adaptation of a kids’ cartoon (it was truly an adaptation of a comic, but Hollywood didn’t really acknowledge comics as a good source of movies back then once you got past Batman and Superman, and even they were better known for other screen versions). Previous attempts (Masters of the Universe, e.g.) had not been very successful.

So this little company called New Line Cinema, which mostly did B-movies and low-budget stuff, took it on. It started New Line on the path to respectability (they did Peter Jackson’s six Tolkien films), and they’re now a major studio.

The first film was a huge hit, and the sequel, subtitled The Secret of the Ooze, was released only a year later. Half the cast changed. Only two of the Turtle voices—Brian Tochi as Leonardo and Robbie Rist as Michelangelo—came back, with Adam Carl replacing Corey Feldman as Donatello and Laurie Faso replacing Josh Pais as Raphael. In addition, Paige Turco replaced Judith Hoag as April O’Neill, and the character of Casey Jones was dropped. The studio wanted to bring in Bebop and Rock Steady from the cartoon, but those characters didn’t originate in the comics, and the legal clearances to use them would’ve been more complicated, so they simply created Rahzar and Tokka as Shredder’s monsters.

Another change in the second film was that the Turtles used hand-to-hand combat more often than they used their signature weapons of swords, nunchucks, sais, and staff. This was apparently due to concerns about the violence in the first film. Why hitting people with your fists is inherently better than hitting them with a big wooden stick is unclear, but hey, America.

The Secret of the Ooze was also a hit, though its box office was smaller than the first, on a bigger budget. Two years later, the third film, which simply had a Roman numeral III attached with no subtitle, brought Elias Koteas back as Jones, kept Turco as O’Neill, brought back Feldman to voice Donatello, this time with Tim Kelleher as Raphael, and James Murray replaced Kevin Clash as the voice of the Turtles’ mentor Splinter. The diminishing returns of box office continued, as the third film was profitable, but less so than the other two (especially the first), and they decided to go out on a high note, with a discussed fourth film never getting out of the development phase.

A live-action TV series simply called Ninja Turtles came out for a season in 1997, and then the Turtles returned to the big screen in 2007 with an animated film simply called TMNT, with future Captain America/former Human Torch Chris Evans doing the voice of Jones, Sarah Michelle “Buffy” Gellar as O’Neill, and Sir Patrick Stewart his own self as Yaoti. A new set of live-action films debuted in 2014, with its sequel released in 2016 (we’ll be covering those down the line).

April O’Neill does a report for Channel 3 Eyewitness News about the crime wave that is sweeping New York City, as a rash of robberies has the police and the citizenry stymied. The victims never see the thieves.

When she heads home after a long day at the office, O’Neill sees thieves trying to steal stuff out of the Channel 3 news van. The gang starts to beat her up, but then a sai flies through the air and takes out the only streetlight. A minute later, the bad guys are all beat up and tied up, and O’Neill is safe. However, the sai that took out the street light is still on the sidewalk, and O’Neill grabs it.

O’Neill was saved by four human-sized turtles: Raphael (who wielded the sais, and who’s unhappy that he left one behind), Donatello, Leonardo, and Michelangelo. They go to their hideout in the sewer and report to their mentor, Splinter, a human-sized rat. While they act like typical teenagers, mostly, they are more respectful with Splinter—up to a point, anyhow. When he calls for meditation, they instead dance to the Champs’ “Tequila” (with the word “ninjitsu” substituted for the titular utterance).

Raphael, though, isn’t in a party mood, as he’s still grumpy about losing a sai, so he puts on a big hat and trenchcoat and goes to see a movie. On the way home, he stops a mugging, chasing the would-be thieves into Central Park, where he encounters a hockey-mask-wearing vigilante named Casey Jones. Raphael and Jones spar a bit, which lets the thieves get away.

O’Neill has heard from Japanese immigrants that this crime wave is very much like that perpetrated some time back in Japan by a mysterious group known only as “the Foot.” When O’Neill mentions this possibility on the air, she is chastised by both the chief of police and her boss.

Meanwhile, her boss’s son, Danny, is actually part of the Foot. An armored criminal called the Shredder has gathered a bunch of disaffected youths, trained them in martial arts and thievery, and is using them to build his criminal empire.

The Foot goes after O’Neill to warn her off the story, but Raphael saves her and brings her unconscious form back to their sewer hideout. Splinter provides their origin. He was the pet rat of Hamato Yoshi, a ninja warrior, and Splinter learned how to be a ninja from observing his human. After Yoshi was killed by a rival named Oroku Saki, Splinter scratched Saki’s face, while Saki cut off one of Splinter’s ears. Later, in the sewers of New York, Splinter came across a broken canister of ooze, which mutated him, as well as four baby turtles. Splinter raised the turtles to be ninja warriors.

That was fifteen years ago, and now they’re teenagers. Once O’Neill gets over her initial frightened confusion, she lets the turtles escort her back to her apartment, where they bond and enjoy each others’ company (and eat a lot of pork rinds).

However, one of the Foot ninjas followed Raphael and O’Neill back to the hideout, and they return in force and kidnap Splinter.

The turtles regroup at O’Neill’s apartment and try to figure out their next move. O’Neill’s boss visits with her son, and Danny catches glimpses of the turtles, intelligence he shares with Shredder and his lieutenant, Tatsu.

Raphael and Leonardo get into an argument, and Raphael goes to the roof to work out his frustrations. Jones sees him on the roof from another roof, and goes to investigate. The Foot also show up, and Raphael gets his butt kicked on the roof before they fall through the skylight. A massive fight ensues, which utterly trashes O’Neill’s home, as well as the antique shop she inherited from her father. Jones helps out, and they escape through a trapdoor. (During the fight, O’Neill’s boss leaves a message on her machine saying she’s fired.)

They take O’Neill’s van upstate to a family farm that hasn’t been occupied in years. Leonardo keeps watch over Raphael’s comatose form, while Jones and O’Neill either argue or flirt, depending on how you look at it. After Raphael awakens, the four turtles train together. Splinter manages to send them a vision, proving he’s alive, and they head back to the city.

Splinter is being held captive by the Shredder, though he has so far refused to tell the Foot anything. However, he does talk a lot with Danny, who is conflicted about his role with the Foot. We also find out that Shredder is actually Saki, and the helmet he wears as the Shredder is designed to cover the facial scars Splinter gave him.

Danny runs away to the turtles’ lair, telling O’Neill only that he ran away from home. He begs to stay the night. But while everyone else is sleeping, Danny sneaks back to Foot headquarters. Jones—who is claustrophobic, and therefore sleeps in the truck—sees this and follows him. Together they free Splinter and then lead the Foot teenagers back to the turtles’ home.

Meanwhile, Shredder leads a team of his ninjas to attack the turtles. While the quartet easily dispatch the thugs, they cannot defeat Shredder. However, Splinter confronts him, and is victorious, with Shredder falling into a garbage truck.

The turtles are victorious, and celebrate. O’Neill gets her job back, complete with raise and corner office. Splinter even makes a funny.

The turtles and Splinter are living in O’Neill’s new apartment until they can find a new place to dwell, since their sewer hideout was pretty much burned.

They make a pizza order—this time from Roy’s Pizza instead of Domino’s, meaning (a) the turtles have realized that they weren’t getting the best possible pizza in New York, which is pretty much anyplace other than Domino’s and (b) Domino’s didn’t pay to have their “pizza” featured in the film—and the delivery guy, Keno, discovers some thieves. A skilled martial artist, Keno is able to take on some of them, but they start to overwhelm him. Luckily, that’s when the turtles show up and kick butt.

O’Neill’s latest story is about Techno-Global Research Industries, which is disposing of their radioactive samples due to concerns about a leak. (They found some dandelions that are the size of sunflowers.) Raphael doesn’t want to watch O’Neill’s interview with Professor Jordan Perry of TGRI, but it is Splinter who insists on leaving it on.

Shredder survived the events of the last film, and takes control of the Foot once again. O’Neill’s camera operator is a Foot operative, and he brings one of the mutant dandelions to Shredder. He orders the Foot to kidnap Perry.

When O’Neill comes home, Splinter reveals that the canister of ooze that mutated Splinter and all four turtles had the TGRI logo on it. The turtles head to TGRI to talk to Perry, only to find that the Foot has gotten there first. Fisticuffs ensue, but the Foot get away with both the final canister of ooze that Perry had been about to dispose of as well as Perry himself.

Worried about danger to O’Neill, the turtles seek out a new place to live, and wind up in the old abandoned City Hall subway station. Keno insinuates himself into the group, and offers to infiltrate the Foot—they’re actively recruiting teenagers, particularly ones with martial arts skills—but Splinter refuses to endanger Keno.

After again arguing with Leonardo, Raphael leaves the group and joins up with Keno to enact his plan. Keno is the perfect recruit, and he’s brought to their hideout in a garbage dump. Unfortunately, Tatsu discovers them, and a fight breaks out. Raphael holds off the Foot while Keno escapes to warn the others.

At Shredder’s instruction, Perry has used the ooze on a snapping turtle and a wolf, who are mutated into human-sized creatures named Tokka and Rahzar—and who are also dumb as posts, to Shredder’s annoyance.

Keno and the three turtles go to rescue Raphael, at which they succeed, and also rescue Perry, but they’re unable to defeat Tokka and Rahzar. They regroup at their new hideout, and Perry reveals that the creation of the ooze was an accident. He also deliberately made the formula that mutated Tokka and Rahzar such that they would be spectacularly stupid.

Shredder has Tokka and Rahzar trash an entire neighborhood, and Shredder has O’Neill’s camera operator tell O’Neill that they’ll keep doing that unless the turtles meet him at his hideout. Perry, though, has created an antidote, which the turtles bring with them to the meet. After a few false starts, the turtles are able to feed the antidote to the monsters, reverting them to a wolf and snapping turtle once again. Meanwhile, the fight against the Foot takes them to a dance club, where Vanilla Ice is playing. (Don’t worry if you don’t know who that is. By the time this movie aired, the fourth-rate rapper was already well into his fifteenth minute.)

There’s one vial of ooze left, and Shredder takes it himself. His fight against the turtles continues out of the club and onto the pier, which Shredder then trashes—a tactical error, as turtles are amphibious, so they don’t drown, but Shredder does, having in essence defeated himself.

Perry sends a thank-you to the turtles via O’Neill, and Splinter chastises the turtles for being seen by an entire club full of people—and at least one photographer, since they’re on the front page of the New York Post. But then Splinter makes another funny…

In feudal Japan, a young man named Kenshin is being chased by soldiers of his father, a feudal lord, or daimyo, named Norinaga. Kenshin is in league with Mitsu, a woman who leads a rebellion against Norinaga’s rule. For his part, Norinaga has entered a partnership with a British pirate named Walker, who offers guns and cannon to aid in Norinaga’s conquest goals.

In the present, O’Neill shows up at the turtles’ old subway station home. She’s about to go on vacation, but she got presents for each turtle from an antique shop. She also got something for Splinter: a scepter with Japanese writing on it.

In the past, Kenshin is captured and brought to his father. He is not imprisoned, but he is confined to the castle. He trashes a room in anger, and comes across a scepter—the very same one O’Neill bought.

The scepter starts to activate in both times, and O’Neill and Kenshin wind up trading places, with O’Neill now in a 16th-century Japanese castle and Kenshin in a 20th-century abandoned New York City subway.

O’Neill is considered to be some kind of witch—especially when Norinaga gets a load of her Walkman—and she’s imprisoned. In another cage is Whit, a guy who’s a dead ringer for Jones.

In the present, Jones arrives at the subway station. His job is to protect Splinter while the turtles use the scepter to go back in time and get O’Neill back. The turtles wind up in the middle of a battle and wearing armor. Meanwhile, four of Norinaga’s soldiers come to the present in their underwear.

While the turtles can handle themselves in a fight, they’re less skilled in riding horses. Michelangelo winds up separated from the group with the scepter, and he’s ambushed. The other three head to the castle, using their armor as cover, since it identifies them as Norinaga’s honor guard.

Raphael, Donatello, and Leonardo manages to spring O’Neill, and also Whit, and they escape the castle. They’re ambushed by Mitsu’s rebels, but then Mitsu realizes that they look just like their prisoner. They soon realize that Michelangelo is with Mitsu, and everyone becomes good friends as Mitsu takes them to her village. The turtles reassure her that Kenshin is safe in the future and they’ll send him home once they locate the scepter.

Walker attacks the village, looking for the scepter. The turtles drive him off, but Walker sets fire to several buildings. Michelangelo saves a young boy named Yoshi from a fire, and Leonardo uses CPR to save the boy’s life. Later, Raphael befriends Yoshi, convincing him to enjoy childhood by playing with kites and such rather than learn how to fight at such a young age.

In the present, Jones keeps Kenshin and the four honor guard busy by teaching them about hockey. There’s a 60-hour time limit on the turtles’ time travel—if they don’t come back before then, they never will—and Splinter and Jones are worried.

Yoshi reveals that the scepter is hidden in the village. Mitsu and the village elder reveal that they hid it because they didn’t want to lose the turtles’ fighting skills against Norinaga, who, she has learned, will attack the village with Walker’s guns in the morning.

Whit turns out to be a spy for Walker. He captures both the scepter and Mitsu and takes them back to Norinaga’s castle. The turtles storm the castle and battle Norinaga’s forces, with Leonardo and Norinaga having a sword duel.

Walker tries to escape, tossing the scepter as a distraction. However, Walker also condemned Whit to death, which Whit doesn’t much appreciate, so he uses a catapult to send Walker to his doom while the turtles retrieve the scepter.

Michelangelo and Raphael don’t want to go home—they like it better in feudal Japan where they’re actually appreciated—but Kenshin forces their hand by activating the scepter in the present. The five of them return to the present, while the four honor guard and Kenshin return to the past, the latter happily reunited with Mitsu.

The turtles celebrate their victory, with Splinter making one last funny.

“This is absolutely the worst rescue I’ve ever had!”

One of the things that most impressed me about the first TMNT movie when I saw it in the theatre back in 1990 was how incredibly true to the comics it was.

This is no small accomplishment. As we’ve seen quite a bit in this rewatch, the notion of a faithful adaptation to the comics is not particularly common in 20th-century comics adaptations. There were almost always significant variations, many to the point where the characters are barely recognizable.

So to see TMNT hew so closely to Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s comic book storylines was a revelation. This was the first time I’d seen so faithful an adaptation of a comic book.

Looking back on it and its sequels some two-and-a-half decades later, that’s not the same kind of impressive as it was then. But the movies are still as much fun to my 48-year-old self as they were to me in my 20s, despite being horribly dated. The turtles make several pop-culture references that would go over the heads of most folks who weren’t alive in the early 1990s, and there are moments, particularly in The Secret of the Ooze, where the turtles spend too much time goofing off when they should be in the middle of a fight. The worst offender is the club scene in Ooze with Vanilla Ice (a performer about whom I have not dedicated a single brain cell since about 1993 or so), but you see it throughout the three films, and while it can be cute, it grows tiresome.

The biggest problem is that not enough is done to differentiate the turtles from each other, with the notable exception of Raphael. His surly act stands out from the other three—literally in the first two, as he storms off in a huff in both movies, and in each case it moves the plot along—which is good, as it becomes very difficult to tell the others apart from each other, despite each having their own set of weapons (how they were differentiated in the original black-and-white comic book) and a different-colored bandana/mask (first set up in the cartoon). Josh Pais gets some credit here, as his vocal work on Raphael in the first movie does a lot to set the surliest of our heroes apart—and both Laurie Faso and Tim Kelleher basically impersonated Pais when they took over for the other two films.

The third movie is often the forgotten one—the first one is, well, the first one, and the second one is mostly The One With Vanilla Ice Oh God What Were They Thinking?—but the third one has its charms. In particular, the fight choreography is far better in the third movie than the other two, as the animatronic turtles—who were done by All Effects Company instead of the Henson Creature Shop like the first two—perform actual martial arts moves in their fights.

Not to dis the Henson folks, as they did superlative work here. These turtles are far more tangible and integrated into the real world. As good as the CGI is in the 2010s films (and it’s quite excellent), it doesn’t feel as tactile and real as the animatronic turtles in these three movies. There’s a level of expressiveness and weight that CGI is much better at now than it was even ten years ago, but it’s still not there yet.

In any case, these are not great movies by any stretch of the imagination, but dammit, they’re fun. Neither Judith Hoag nor Paige Turco stand out all that much as O’Neill—Hoag is stronger than Turco, which is not something I’d say normally, as Turco’s career is much more impressive on the whole—but Elias Koteas is having a grand old time as Jones, and it’s infectious, for all that he’s a complete jerk. (Also the kiss between him and O’Neill at the end of the first movie is horribly contrived, as there’s nothing in the film to justify it. Jones is an ass, and they only kiss because it’s a movie and that’s what’s supposed to happen.) Jones’s presence was missed in Ooze, with Keno a mediocre substitute, blandly played by Ernie Reyes Jr.

Plus, we’ve got a few Robert Knepper moments here: Kevin Clash—the voice of Elmo his own self—does Splinter’s voice in the first two films, and Sam Rockwell plays one of Shredder’s thugs in the first movie, and yes, that’s really Corey Feldman as the voice of Donatello in the first and third.

Next week, in anticipation of the release of Netflix’s Marvel’s The Punisher, we’ll take a gander at the three previous attempts to bring the Punisher to the screen.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/11/03/cowabunga-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-ii-the-secret-of-the-ooze-and-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-iii/feed/37Mime from Hell — The Crow, The Crow: City of Angels, The Crow: Salvation, and The Crow: Wicked Prayerhttps://www.tor.com/2017/10/31/mime-from-hell-the-crow-the-crow-city-of-angels-the-crow-salvation-and-the-crow-wicked-prayer/
https://www.tor.com/2017/10/31/mime-from-hell-the-crow-the-crow-city-of-angels-the-crow-salvation-and-the-crow-wicked-prayer/#commentsTue, 31 Oct 2017 16:00:32 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=310413James O’Barr’s black-and-white comic book The Crow was one of the great success stories of the indie comics market of the 1980s and 1990s. A touchstone for Goth culture, the four-part miniseries—originally written as a way for O’Barr to work through the death of his girlfriend at the hands of a drunk driver—was a massive […]]]>

James O’Barr’s black-and-white comic book The Crow was one of the great success stories of the indie comics market of the 1980s and 1990s. A touchstone for Goth culture, the four-part miniseries—originally written as a way for O’Barr to work through the death of his girlfriend at the hands of a drunk driver—was a massive hit for Caliber Comics, and it spawned an impressive collection of spinoffs in comics, prose, and screen form.

The comics continued to be published by a variety of publishers, most recently IDW, while a few novels and a short story anthology were also put out. When the film rights were sold, Alex Proyas, who had directed many music videos, shorts, and an independent science fiction feature, was tapped to direct.

The first film gained a particular notoriety due to its star, Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee), dying during filming. (His father also died while making a film, though the elder Lee died of a cerebral edema.) With only three days of filming left, Lee was shot by an improperly maintained prop gun loaded with blanks.

Several scenes were rewritten and reshot (the new rewrite was uncredited, but performed by Law & Order staffers Walon Green, René Balcer, and Michael S. Chernuchin), using Lee’s stunt double and computer trickery.

Rather than re-cast the role for the sequel, City of Angels, they decided to make the new film with a different person being resurrected by a crow to avenge his own death. Vincent Pérez was cast in the role, though early drafts of the script had a female Crow and also brought back Top Dollar, the bad guy from the first film. Director Tim Pope and writer David Goyer dropped both those elements, bringing in a new bad guy and having a male Crow.

This template was followed for the other two sequels, which were direct-to-video, Salvation and Wicked Prayer, with, respectively, Eric Mabius and Edward Furlong in the title roles. Each film has had a director with minimal feature film experience prior to helming a Crow movie: Proyas and Pope both got started in music videos, while Salvation‘s Bharat Nalluri has mostly directed television, while Wicked Prayer‘s Lance Mungia had just directed two independent projects. (Wicked Prayer is also that rare beast, a movie based on a tie-in novel, as the film was adapted from a Crow novel by Norman Partridge.)

There was also a television series, subtitled Stairway to Heaven, starring Mark Dacascos, which aired on Canadian TV in the 1998 season. That series was a direct spinoff of the first movie, with Dacascos playing Eric Draven.

“Caw-caw! Bang! Fuck, I’m dead!”

The CrowWritten by David J. Schow and John Shirley
Directed by Alex Proyas
Produced by Edward R. Pressman and Jeff Most
Original release date: May 13, 1994

It’s “devil’s night,” the 30th of October, when tons of arsons tend to happen in downtown Detroit. On top of that, we’ve got a double murder, as an apartment was broken into and trashed, its two occupants killed. The couple was about to be married the next day on Hallowe’en. Shelly Webster was assaulted, raped, and stabbed, and is taken to the hospital. Her fiancé Eric Draven was shot and stabbed and thrown out the window. Draven is DOA, while Webster hangs on for 30 hours in the hospital before she dies.

One year later, a crow lands on Draven’s grave and he then crawls out of it. He returns to his apartment, which inexplicably still has crime-scene tape on it. Nobody has touched a thing—the window’s even still broken. And their cat is still there, perfectly healthy, er, somehow. Draven puts white-face mime makeup on his face, and also has flashbacks to the attack. Four guys—T-Bird, Tin Tin, Funboy, and Skank—broke in, assaulted Webster and trashed the apartment. When Draven came home to this, Tin Tin stabbed him and Funboy shot him, with Skank throwing him out the window.

Webster galvanized the tenants of the building to sign a petition, which pissed off Top Dollar, the immaculately coiffed gangster who apparently owns the building. T-Bird’s gang works for him, and they were tasked with scaring her off the petition. It got out of hand when Draven showed up.

Funboy is sleeping with a waitress named Darla, who also is the mother of Sarah. Darla is a sufficiently awful mother that Sarah spent most of her time with Webster and Draven—at least until they died. Sergeant Albrecht—the first uniform on the scene of the double murder—keeps an eye on Sarah.

Tin Tin sells some stolen merchandise at Gideon’s Pawn Shop, then is attacked by Draven, who cannot be permanently harmed or killed. Every wound heals instantly. Tin Tin finds this out the hard way, and then is on the receiving end of every knife he threw at Draven. After drawing an image of a crow in blood near Tin Tin’s corpse, he goes to Gideon’s. Once he locates the engagement ring that T-Bird’s gang pawned after taking it from their apartment, he beats up Gideon and stabs him in the hand, tells him to tell the rest of T-Bird’s gang that death is coming for them, then torches the shop. Albrecht sees him, but is distracted by looters of the pawn shop, and so Draven gets away.

Draven’s next target is Funboy, whom he finds shtupping Sarah’s mother. Funboy shoots him in the hand, which heals instantly; Draven shoots Funboy in the knee, which doesn’t. Before he passes out, he laments that the sheets are stained. After scaring Darla straight, Draven injects several of the needles in the apartment into Funboy’s chest, and he dies of an overdose.

Gideon is brought to Top Dollar, who is skeptical of his story of a clown-faced immortal ghost, and so stabs him in the throat. His right-hand/lover Myca is intrigued, however.

Draven visits Albrecht at home to get the full story of the murder. A former detective, he was demoted to a beat cop due to politics. (As he puts it to one detective, he lost his gold shield because he wasn’t a big enough asshole.) He also stayed with Webster in the hospital until she died. Draven receives that memory when he touches Albrecht, and it just reinforces his desire to seek out vengeance.

Draven also saves Sarah from being run down by a cab, and Sarah recognizes him, but he disappears before she can talk to him in depth.

Next on the hit parade is T-Bird, who is getting supplies with Skank. Draven kidnaps T-Bird in his muscle car (also a T-Bird) and drives him to the pier. A cop car and Skank (the latter having carjacked someone who had just run him over) give chase through the unrealistically empty streets, but they crash into each other, leaving Draven to take T-Bird to the pier, tie him to the driver’s seat, and set off all the explosives he had for his arson habit in the trunk. They can only identify T-Bird from dental records. Draven also pours gas on the ground in a pattern that allows him to light a fire in the shape of a crow.

Skank, badly hurt from vehicular assault by both his carjacking victim and the police, goes to Top Dollar, scared shitless. Top Dollar’s lieutenant, Grange, has gone to Draven’s grave and found it dug up and opened. (Nobody’s done anything about that? Who’s caretaking this cemetery????) Top Dollar brings Skank to his summit meeting, which T-Bird normally attends. Draven shows up as well, saying he only wants Skank. Top Dollar refuses to turn him over and he orders his people to all shoot Draven. This proves to be a spectacularly bad career move, as they do shoot him, but he doesn’t stay dead, whereas when Draven attacks them, they all die—including Skank, whom he throws out a window.

Draven finds Sarah at Webster’s grave. He gives her his necklace. Shortly thereafter, Top Dollar kidnaps her and takes her to a church. (He probably knew of her connection to Draven from Funboy’s dalliance with Darla.)

Sure enough, Draven comes to her rescue, but at Myca’s urging, Grange shoots the crow that follows Draven everywhere, and with the crow wounded, Draven no longer can heal himself. However, Albrecht shows up, and lots of gunplay ensues. Grange is killed, Albrecht is wounded. Myca grabs the wounded crow, but before she can claim its power for herself, the bird pecks her eyes out and kills her. Draven and Top Dollar confront each other on the church roof in the rain. While Draven is weakened by the crow being wounded, he is able to convey memories with a touch, and he gives Top Dollar Albrecht’s memories of the thirty hours of pain Webster suffered before she died. Then Draven tosses Top Dollar over the side and he is impaled on a gargoyle.

Draven is able to go to his final rest with Webster, and lives happily ever after. Or something. Albrecht is still wounded and suspended, and Sarah still lives with a junkie, but hey, at least Top Dollar’s entire organization is trashed, which should make the city safe for a while…

“A murder of crows—think about it.”

The Crow: City of AngelsWritten by David S. Goyer
Directed by Tim Pope
Produced by Edward R. Pressman and Jeff Most
Original release date: August 30, 1996

Sarah is all grow’d up now, and has moved to Los Angeles, where she works as a tattoo artist. She also paints, and there’s a giant painting in her unrealistically large apartment that looks like Draven holding the dead Webster in his arms.

Sarah has a nightmare about a man and his son being shot and killed. Sure enough, Ashe Corven and his son Danny witnessed a murder committed by four people who work for Judah Earl, a drug kingpin. That quartet—Curve, Nemo, Spider-Monkey, and Kali—then kill Corven and Danny and toss their bodies into the river.

A crow shows up at Sarah’s place. She follows it to the pier where Corven comes out of the water, back from the dead. Recognizing what’s happening, Sarah leads a very confused Corven back to her apartment, where she paints the mime makeup on his face and gives him a duster so he looks appropriately Crow-ish. Corven wails and screams and gesticulates a lot, then he gets on a motorcycle and drives off to get his revenge.

First victim is Spider-Monkey. Corven gets the names of all the killers from him, then blows him up along with one of Earl’s drug labs. When Curve reports this to Earl, the latter is much more concerned about the lab. Earl has a woman named Sybil working for him who can see the future.

Corven’s next target is Nemo, who loves to spend his leisure time at a peep show. He jerks off to a woman, but his time elapses before he can finish off, so he struggles to get out another token. But after he inserts it, the window opens to reveal, not the woman, but Corven, who breaks through the glass and kills him, poking his eyes out. Before dying, Nemo insisted that they were acting under Earl’s orders and had no choice. Corven leaves a piece of origami shaped like a crow in Nemo’s mouth and then departs.

Sarah gave Curve a tattoo in the shape of a crow, and Earl thinks she may be connected to Corven, which Sybil confirms. Curve and Kali torture Sarah’s boss to get the location of her apartment and then they kidnap her. Kali stays behind to confront Corven when he arrives, and they fight. Kali is the one who shot and killed Danny, so Corven draws things out with her, before finally breaking her leg and tossing her out a window. The blood from her head wound forms the shape of a crow, because of course it does.

Even though he knows that Sarah is missing and Kali was in her apartment, Corven decides that her fate is less important than his vengeance, so he tracks Curve to a party and then chases him through the unrealistically empty streets before blowing up his motorcycle with a shotgun and then drowning his wounded self in the river.

The crow then reminds him that Sarah is a prisoner of the boss who ordered his death, so Corven heads to Earl’s skyscraper, which is overlooking a Day of the Dead parade. Corven pushes through the crowd and then climbs the outside of the skyscraper for whatever reason. (I guess going in the front door isn’t cool enough.)

The crow flies into the room where Sarah is being held, and Sarah tries to warn the bird away. Sybil predicted where the crow would be standing, so Earl sets a trap for that spot that cages the crow. Earl then kills the crow and drinks its blood. Corven plummets to the ground, his fall broken by an awning and some flowers.

Earl now has the crow’s powers, and he goes outside and confronts Corven, wrapping a rope around his neck and then hanging him from a lamppost. He’s interrupted by Sarah, who was freed by Sybil. Sarah stabs Earl in the forehead, which saves Corven, but doesn’t kill Earl. Earl stabs Sarah right back, and she collapses. Corven impales Earl on a pipe and then summons a whole bunch of crows, er, somehow, and they get rid of Earl, er, somehow. Sarah also dies in Corven’s arms (looking just like the painting!), and Corven goes to his final rest.

“She fought for her life because life is worth living!”

The Crow: SalvationWritten by Chip Johannessen
Directed by Bharat Nalluri
Produced by Edward R. Pressman and Jeff Most
Original release date: January 23, 2000

Alex Corvis has been convicted of murdering his girlfriend, Lauren Randall, by stabbing her 53 times. Corvis has insisted that he’s innocent, but the only person who believes him is his lawyer, Peter Walsh. Certainly the victim’s father, Nathan Randall, and Lauren’s sister Erin believe that Corvis is guilty. Four cops testified against Corvis, as did a witness who saw them fight shortly before she went missing. Corvis insisted a man with a series of scars on his left arm planted the knife that killed her in his truck.

Corvis is put in the electric chair. (Allegedly, this movie takes place in Salt Lake City, though it’s never specified on screen. Utah has never actually used electrocution as a method of capital punishment. By 1980, they mostly had converted to lethal injections, though Utah is also the last state to have allowed death by firing squad.) A lightning strike causes a surge, and the death takes much longer and is much more painful than it usually is. His face is completely burned.

After being taken to the morgue, Corvis is resurrected by a crow. The burns on his face peel off, revealing a face that looks very much like the mime-like makeup of the previous two Crows. His first stop is the police evidence control room, where he finds the knife that killed Lauren, which he takes with him, along with the witness list from the trial.

He pays a visit to Lauren’s grave. Erin shows up also, and she is still convinced that Corvis is guilty. Corvis says he will prove his innocence.

First he talks to the witness, Tommy Leonard, who admits that he only saw the fight, not the murder. The cops told him to testify that he saw the stabbing because Corvis would walk otherwise.

Corvis’s next stop is Dutton, whom he interrupts in the midst of an attempted statutory rape. Corvis shoots him in the head. Another corrupt cop, Madden, goes to a strip joint called the Key Club, which is owned and operated by Madden and the four cops who testified against Corvis. Madden informs the others—Erlich, Toomey, and Roberts—of Dutton’s death.

Erlich is no longer on active duty, as he was shot in the line of duty. Using the psychometry that the Crows sometimes have, Corvis has learned that the quartet of cops kidnapped Lauren and raped her. She fought back and managed to get Erlich’s gun and shoot him in the foot. Angered, the cops then stabbed her and set up Corvis.

Corvis kills Erlich by driving his car into a wall. Said car is owned by Erlich but registered to D.E.R.T., a company whose address is the same as that of the Randall family. Corvis shares this with a still-pissed-off Erin, who only very reluctantly looks at the registration card Corvis gives her, and then goes into her father’s files. She soon realizes that D.E.R.T. is in fact owned by her father and the cops who testified against Corvis were working with Randall. Erin now believes that Corvis was set up and her father was involved. Randall tries to deny it, but since he’s played by William Atherton, it’s impossible to believe he’s anything but corrupt and evil, and so he kills himself, possibly goaded on by the captain, who is the ringleader of the corrupt cops.

The witness list (with a bloodstain in the shape of, of course, a crow) was left behind in Erlich’s car, and Toomey and Roberts see it and panic, as they’re the next two names on the list, after the two corpses. They go to Leonard to find out what he said, and throw him out the window and shoot his wife. (It’s unclear what they do, if anything, to their infant son.)

Erin goes to Walsh, only to be kidnapped by the captain and Madden, who also shoot and kill Walsh. However, Walsh has already informed Corvis about some dirt he dug up on D.E.R.T. (ahem), including that they own the Key Club. Corvis goes to the Key Club, where his psychometry reveals that Lauren witnessed our gaggle of corrupt cops killing someone in the club’s back room, which is why she was targeted for kidnapping and rape. Killing her wasn’t part of the original plan, but her shooting Erlich changed things.

Roberts, Toomey, and several cops open fire on Corvis, which naturally does no good whatsoever. Roberts is impaled by a rebar, and everyone else is blown up when Madden shows up and shoots an automatic weapon after Toomey had broken a gas line. (It’s never made clear how Madden survived the explosion.) Among the remains, Corvis finds a left arm with the scar he remembers.

Corvis thinks his work is done, but Erin and Walsh are both missing, so he goes to the captain to find them. However, his powers are failing because he believes his vengeance is complete. The captain takes advantage of this and stabs him 53 times. However, Erin—who has been bound and her mouth sewn shut—manages to get the locket that she and Lauren had matching sets of into the hands of the crow, who drops it next to Corvis. That’s enough to resurrect him again, and he kills Madden and the captain’s secretary. For her part, Erin manages to use a scalpel to stab the captain, cut off her stitches, and shoot the captain in the ear. Corvis notices Walsh’s corpse is missing the left arm, and the captain himself has the scars. Erin and Corvis bring the captain to the prison and break into it, er, somehow, and electrocute him the same way Corvis was electrocuted.

Now Corvis can move on to the afterlife with Lauren. And hey, Erin just inherited a fortune!

“Get off me, you damn hallucination!”

The Crow: Wicked PrayerWritten by Lance Mungia and Jeff Most and Sean Hood
Directed by Lance Mungia
Produced by Edward R. Pressman and Jeff Most
Original release date: June 3, 2005

In the mining town of Lake Ravasu, there is constant conflict between the miners and the members of the Raven Aztec tribe, who are building a casino. Jimmy Cuevo has just been paroled; he was imprisoned for beating a young man to death. Said young man was in the midst of raping a woman, but that doesn’t seem to matter as much as the murder. Cuevo is also in love with a Native girl, Lilly Ignites the Dawn. Lilly’s father is the local priest and her brother is the sheriff of the tribal police, and neither of them like or approve of Cuevo.

Four local guys have taken on the personas of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, with an animus against either the Raven Aztecs, the mining company, or both. They’re led by Luc Crash, who fancies himself to be Death. His girlfriend Lola Byrne is part of the crew, too, and they plan to raise Satan.

Cuevo is en route to propose to Lilly. He’s stopped first by the sheriff, who doesn’t want him anywhere near his sister, and then he walks in on Crash and the rest, who have tied her up and cut her eyes out. Byrne now has the gift of prophecy, thanks to taking Lilly’s eyes. Crash cuts Cuevo’s heart out and it dissolves, giving him the power of Satan.

The Horsemen head to a dump, toss the two corpses in an old freezer, toss that into the oily water, and then set it afire. However, Cuevo is resurrected by the crow. He isn’t thrilled with being brought back to life, and even tries to kill himself—which is how he finds out that he can’t be hurt. He leaves Lilly’s body for her brother to find, but the sheriff just thinks that Cuevo is responsible.

Almost reluctantly, Cuevo goes on his mission of vengeance, after burning down his trailer (and leaving his dog homeless, which is just mean), and changing into the outfit he wore for a party at the reservation years ago that looks just like the other stars of the Crow movies!!!! He finds Pestilence in a bar, getting a batch of peyote for Crash and the gang. The gang, meanwhile, has gone off to take vengeance on the priest who killed Crash’s father, and is now atoning for it by being a priest. That same priest’s son is the guy that Cuevo killed. Because Lake Ravasu apparently only has ten people in it.

After killing Pestilence, Cuevo goes to the priest, but Crash is long gone. Cuevo does heal the priest of his gunshot wound, which is enough to keep his wife from shooting their son’s killer, but not enough for her to forgive him. (Not that shooting him would’ve worked, but she doesn’t know that.) Cuevo also steals the hearse that has Lilly’s body and buries it, leaving the coroner on the side of the road.

Cuevo tracks down Crash, Byrne, War, and Famine at the casino. Cuevo kills Famine, but Crash wounds the crow, which leaves Cuevo vulnerable. War shoots him (and most of the casino guests) and they all leave. The sheriff finds Cuevo and thinks he’s responsible for the massacre, but Cuevo is able to touch him and show his memories to reveal what has actually happened.

Crash and Byrne need to perform a ritual involving sacrificing a virgin and getting married and having sex on a burial ground, which will bring Satan to Earth. They have trouble locating a virgin, but they do eventually track one down on the side of the road: the coroner. They go to El Niño, their mentor, to perform the wedding. Byrne was one of Niño’s prostitutes until she ran away, stealing the spellbook they’ve been using from him, but given that Crash is now channeling Satan’s power, Niño is willing to forgive and forget.

He performs the wedding, which ends with Byrne stabbing Crash. He dies, and then is resurrected as Lucifer his own self. Byrne then kills Niño in long-desired revenge.

Lilly’s father and brother and a posse show up, as do Cuevo. Cuevo takes out War, but Lucifer takes out Cuevo, stringing him up and then driving off in the hearse to find a burial ground to have sex on. The priest and sheriff look on in shock, especially when Byrne casually confesses to murdering Lilly. Crash and Byrne must consummate their marriage before sunrise in order for Lucifer to fully manifest. The priest performs the Crow Dance to resurrect the crow and give Cuevo his invulnerability back. Cuevo interrupts Crash and Byrne in mid-coitus to fight.

In the end, Cuevo triumphs, mostly by holding out until sunrise. Cuevo impales Crash on a rock and Lucifer is sent back to hell. The sheriff stops his father from killing Byrne, and instead he arrests her for Lilly’s murder.

Cuevo goes to the afterlife where he finally gets to propose to Lilly and live happily ever after.

“Can’t rain all the time.”

There’s an AM radio station here in New York called WINS. Their motto is “You give us 22 minutes, we’ll give you the world.” The first car I owned was a 1977 Ford Pinto, and the FM radio died at some point when I owned it, and so all I had to listen to was AM radio. I tried listening to WINS, figuring I may as well be informed, but doing so, I discovered the implied second part of the slogan: “You give us 44 minutes, we’ll give you the world twice.” Listening to news radio for more than 20 minutes is not a good use of one’s time, as you just get the same stuff over and over again.

Watching the four Crow movies in a row is very much like listening to news radio. The four movies all have basically the same plot, and the variations between them are minor and irrelevant. It’s all the same damn plot: man and person man loves both die at the hands of four people, plus a few extra others. Man comes back as spirit of vengeance thanks to a crow. Man takes super-powered vengeance on the killers, taking them on one at a time, culminating in the big boss. Lather, rinse, repeat.

When I first saw The Crow in the theatre in 1994, I was impressed. I loved the visuals, and I was absorbed by the plot. It helped that it was on a big screen and that it had some excellent talent in supporting roles—Tony Todd, Jon Polito, and especially Ernie Hudson as Albrecht.

When I saw it again on video a few years later, I wondered what I was smoking when I saw it the first time. All I saw was a pretentious piece of claptrap.

And that’s all I saw this time, only it just kept getting worse with each movie. Brandon Lee at least brought a certain energy to the role, but Draven’s love for Webster is just a bunch of quick-cut flashbacks that don’t give enough context. (Some of this is due to Lee’s untimely death, which happened before he could finish filming the scenes with Webster.) The character of Sarah was important in the original (she’s named Sherri in the comics), but she’s utterly superfluous here except as a hostage. Draven’s relationship with Albrecht has more verve, mostly due to Ernie Hudson, who is the movie’s one true saving grace.

City of Angels has no such relief. Vincent Pérez counts on his arm gestures and brooding to do the acting work for him. Corven’s love for his son is much more clear and emotionally binding to the viewer than Draven’s love for Webster was, but the killers are just Top Dollar’s gang only in Los Angeles, down to having an Asian woman as part of the inner circle. Richard Brooks as Earl is a much more interesting villain than Michael Wincott as Top Dollar, but that’s mostly because almost anything would be better than Wincott doing his third-rate Clancy-Brown-as-the-Kurgan act.

Salvation takes a different tack by giving the main character a redemption arc to go with the vengeance arc. Corvis is accused of the murder of his true love, and after suffering capital punishment he comes back to wreak revenge on the real killers. Eric Mabius doesn’t really do the don’t-hate-me-because-I’m-beautiful broody Goth thing the way Lee and Pérez did, and unfortunately, he’s not snarky enough to really embrace the snotty dialogue he’s been given, so his Crow turns out to be kinda lifeless.

The Goth aesthetic is pretty much tossed aside here for a straight-up corrupt-cop storyline. It’s fun to see a younger Walton Goggins and Tim DeKay as two of the corrupt cops. It’s less fun to see Fred Ward and William Atherton in roles that turn out to be bad guys, which is a total non-surprise due to the casting choice. I mean, c’mon, Ward and Atherton aren’t likely to play good guys now, are they? Kirsten Dunst does the best she can given absolutely nothing to work with in a tiresomely generic grieving-sister role—as it is, she’s the only person who manages to get higher billing than the title character. Our villains come across as actual bad guys you’d find in real life, at least. Top Dollar and Judah Earl are the type of gangsters you only actually see in fiction; a real gangster got that weird, he’d probably get his ass shot inside a few weeks. Corrupt cops, though, are a bit more straightforward. Overall, though, the third movie removes what made the first two stand out: the Goth aesthetic, the visuals, and the soundtrack. (Also, D.E.R.T. for the name of an organization that supports dirty cops? Real subtle there, folks…)

Amusingly, I actually liked Cuevo in Wicked Prayer best of the four protagonists. Edward Furlong looked absurd in the mime-from-hell Crow look, but of the four leads, he’s the one who most provided a character. Jimmy Cuevo was a person whom I could identify with and understand and feel sorry for. Part of it is that Cuevo so totally doesn’t want to be a vengeance spirit. He just wants to die, and this stupid crow won’t let him. His reluctance is a nice twist on the story we’ve already gotten way too many times before.

Sadly, the movie around him is a disaster. The script is laughably bad, the plot inane. While Salvation gave us slightly more realistic bad guys, Wicked Prayer goes all the way in the other direction, as the Four Horsemen are ridiculously over the top and absurd. The movie introduces a conflict between miners and Natives that goes precisely nowhere.

David Boreanaz is the type of actor who usually got cast in the title role of a Crow movie. In fact, he was on the tail end of that broody, dark, oh-god-I’m-so-tortured phase that he was starting to age out of on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and about to transition into his current mode as action/procedural dude on Bones and now Navy SEALs. He chews lots of scenery here, but the role is a dud.

He’s not the only one wasted. While it’s to the filmmakers’ credit that Danny Trejo is not the villain as you’d expect because, well, Danny Trejo, it’s to their lack of credit that his role is so very nowhere. And Dennis Hopper practically is checking his watch while reading his lines wondering when he can go get a drink somewhere. His line readings are that of someone who is slumming and knows it and really just hopes the check clears.

The Crow reminds me of another black-and-white independent comic book, Sin City. The first Sin City miniseries was fantastic, great fun to read. But with each passing miniseries it got less and less interesting, and tremendously repetitive, and it soon became clear that there was only one story to tell, and it was being repeated constantly. (This is also why the second Sin City movie failed.) It’s true with The Crow as well. There’s only so far vengeance will take you, and so many ways you can do it. The first movie, frankly, exhausted most of them—in each case, the punishment fit the crime, as it were, as each death was appropriate to each character’s MO. By hewing so close to a formula (four killers! man must claim vengeance while woman gets to just stay dead! The Crow must blow up a building at some point! a bad guy must be impaled!), the films are straitjacketed.

In the end, if you give The Crow two hours, they’ll give you a stylistic, somewhat dumb story of vengeance and true love. If you give them eight hours, they’ll give you the same stylistic, somewhat dumb story of vengeance and true love four times.

After this little Hallowe’en diversion, we’ll be back in our usual slot on Friday with a look at the first three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies.

Keith R.A. DeCandido wishes everyone a Happy Hallowe’en! He will be the special guest at the Providence Literary Festival in Providence, Kentucky this weekend. Come on by and say hi!

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/10/31/mime-from-hell-the-crow-the-crow-city-of-angels-the-crow-salvation-and-the-crow-wicked-prayer/feed/31Tough Mudder — Star Trek Discovery’s “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”https://www.tor.com/2017/10/30/tough-mudder-star-trek-discoverys-magic-to-make-the-sanest-man-go-mad/
https://www.tor.com/2017/10/30/tough-mudder-star-trek-discoverys-magic-to-make-the-sanest-man-go-mad/#commentsMon, 30 Oct 2017 14:30:19 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=310139It’s always dangerous to riff on a popular story you’ve already done. You do a thing, it’s nifty, and you think, “We should do that again.” Deep Space Nine does “Necessary Evil” and it’s brilliant, so they try to do it again with “Things Past,” and it doesn’t quite come together as well. The Next […]]]>

It’s always dangerous to riff on a popular story you’ve already done. You do a thing, it’s nifty, and you think, “We should do that again.” Deep Space Nine does “Necessary Evil” and it’s brilliant, so they try to do it again with “Things Past,” and it doesn’t quite come together as well. The Next Generation does “The Inner Light,” and it’s a massive hit, and several Trek shows take another shot at something “Inner Light”-ish and it can’t light a candle. “Cause and Effect” was a great TNG episode, a brilliant use of the five-act structure by Brannon Braga and elegantly directed by Jonathan Frakes. Braga himself riffed on it later on in TNG‘s “Timescape,” which wasn’t anywhere near as good, though it was still a perfectly good episode.

Discovery’s “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” is a total riff on “Cause and Effect” (and also on Groundhog Day), and it’s not anywhere near as good. But it still works as an episode, mostly because the focus remains squarely on our main character.

One of the things I’m liking about Discovery is that it’s not about the captain and first officer. Lorca and Saru are important supporting characters, but the show is actually about Burnham. And while “Magic…” involves a threat to the entire ship—indeed, a threat to the entire Federation—the focus remains on Burnham.

We open and close with that old Trek standby, the log entry. The opening entry does what such logs have done since the first season of the original series, to wit, provide exposition. The war is going well, at least partly thanks to Discovery’s spore drive. Burnham herself is starting to slowly become part of the ship’s routine, with a station on the bridge and her friendship with Tilly developing.

The closing entry, though, is all about Burnham, and how far she’s come. It brings the episode full circle nicely, closing out one final loop.

In between, we find out that Harry Mudd got his hands on time-travel technology that allows him to re-live the same half-hour over and over again until he gets it right. Freed from consequence, he gets to do fun things like kill Lorca 50+ times (I must confess to finding the montage of Lorca murders to be embarrassingly entertaining), and learn more and more about the ship until he can take over the computer.

But there’s a wrinkle. The opening log entry also provides another piece of exposition that we really could’ve used last week: Stamets has truly taken the tardigrade’s place and he’s the one operating the spore drive. It’s resulted in a personality shift, as he’s much loopier and stranger (insert “he’s on shrooms!” joke here), but he also apparently exists outside the normal flow of time and space, which means he also remembers every single time loop (unlike everyone else, who re-sets).

It’s not that easy, though, as Stamets has a hard time convincing people of what he says at first, though he has an easier time with each loop as, like Mudd, he learns more each time. During one loop, he asks Burnham to tell him a secret by way of being able to convince her on the next go-round, which is how we find out that Burnham has never been in love.

The theme of love and affection and relationships are all throughout the episode, from Tilly’s drunken ramblings about the kinds of men she likes to Stamets telling the story of how he and Culber met to Tyler and Burnham dancing to the revelations about Mudd and Stella at the very end (more on that in a bit).

Stamets uses the attraction between Tyler and Burnham, because as chief of security, Tyler is the one who has the best chance of stopping Mudd in his tracks, but the rational-sounding Burnham is far more likely to convince him than a crazy-sounding Stamets, especially since Stamets isn’t Tyler’s type…

Eventually, Mudd gets what he wants: how to operate the spore drive. The missing piece through every loop has been Stamets himself, and the engineer is no longer willing to watch people die (he’s done it a lot at this point), so he reveals the secret to Mudd. At that point, they need to give Mudd a reason to reset the time loop one more time, so Burnham gives him something more valuable: her.

It’s a brilliant move. Burnham isn’t listed on the officer manifest, as she isn’t an officer anymore, so Mudd doesn’t realize that he has something way more valuable to the Klingons than the spore drive. He has T’Kuvma’s killer. The Klingons will pay a queen’s ransom for that—and then Burnham kills herself. It’s a ballsy move, and a risky one, as there’s no guarantee that Mudd won’t just cut his losses and settle for selling the spore drive.

However, she rightly bets that Mudd will always let greed win (something we’ve seen in every other appearance of Mudd), so he resets the loop one more time so he can sweeten the pot with Burnham as well as the spore drive.

The solution is very elegant. Mudd only took over critical systems, and they’re able to manipulate non-critical systems to learn things: scans of the gormagander (a space whale that’s nearly extinct—and I like that Saru and Burnham immediately move to save the creature when they discover it) that Mudd used to get on board, reading Mudd’s Wikipedia entry, and reprogramming the interface on the captain’s chair. Thus, while Mudd has computer control, he hasn’t summoned the Klingons to their coordinates, he’s summoned his wife Stella’s father’s yacht.

As with “Cause and Effect,” both script (by co-executive producers Aron Eli Colette and Jesse Alexander) and directing (by David M. Barrett) do a good job of abbreviating the scenes and shooting from different angles to keep things from getting repetitive. As with “Choose Your Pain,” Rainn Wilson’s Mudd is a delight. Wilson’s casual attitude toward the situation—due to knowing full well that there will never be consequences—and freewheeling self-centeredness helps keep the episode light. His presence makes the episode less like “Cause and Effect” and more like Groundhog Day (or, more particularly, Stargate SG-1‘s “Window of Opportunity“), which only helps matters. The show’s been very dark and gloomy in general, and a lighter episode is welcome, from the junior staff having a big-ass party to Mudd’s snark to Tilly’s drunken ramblings to Burnham and Tyler stumbling toward a relationship. (Apropos of nothing, it’s nice to finally have a Trek TV show that is willing to pay for the rights to music—prior characters’ interest in classical and jazz was as much motivated by the fact that such music is in the public domain as anything. Tyler and Burnham dancing to Al Green’s “Love and Happiness” was just perfect.)

The performances are brilliant all around, not just Wilson, but also our main characters, particularly Anthony Rapp as the frustrated Stamets trying desperately to free his crewmates from a trap they don’t even know they’re in, and especially Sonequa Martin-Green, who continues to kill it as Burnham. Every ensemble lives or dies on the strength of its lead, and Martin-Green is up to the challenge, as she accomplishes so much with her facial expressions and vocal inflections.

What’s frustrating is how underused Doug Jones has been as Saru, but it looks like next week will do a bit to correct that, based on the previews. We can only hope…

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/10/30/tough-mudder-star-trek-discoverys-magic-to-make-the-sanest-man-go-mad/feed/208First Draft of the MCU — The Incredible Hulk Returns, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, and The Death of the Incredible Hulkhttps://www.tor.com/2017/10/27/first-draft-of-the-mcu-the-incredible-hulk-returns-the-trial-of-the-incredible-hulk-and-the-death-of-the-incredible-hulk/
https://www.tor.com/2017/10/27/first-draft-of-the-mcu-the-incredible-hulk-returns-the-trial-of-the-incredible-hulk-and-the-death-of-the-incredible-hulk/#commentsFri, 27 Oct 2017 14:00:04 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=308952The Incredible Hulk had a respectable five-year run on television. It remained an iconic part of popular culture, from “you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” taking root in the popular consciousness to a hilarious offhand reference to the show in The Usual Suspects. Six years after its cancellation by CBS, New World picked up […]]]>

The Incredible Hulk had a respectable five-year run on television. It remained an iconic part of popular culture, from “you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” taking root in the popular consciousness to a hilarious offhand reference to the show in The Usual Suspects.

Six years after its cancellation by CBS, New World picked up the rights to the show and sold it to NBC. New World owned Marvel at the time, and they wanted to use their only real TV success as a springboard to try to launch other heroes into television.

Partnered with Bill Bixby, they produced two movies in two years that also served as backdoor pilots, one for Thor, one for Daredevil. Neither of these went to series, and the third movie a year after that was a Hulk solo film that ended the Bixby/Ferrigno era with the Hulk’s death. (A sequel was planned, but scrapped due to poor ratings for The Death of the Incredible Hulk. Any chance of reviving the series died with Bixby in 1993.)

Still, these first two movies were the first attempt at a “Marvel Cinematic Universe.” Indeed, any kind of coherent universe for any superheroes, truly. There had never before been this kind of guest appearance of another hero from a company’s “universe.” No other DC heroes ever appeared in The Adventures of Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman, no other Marvel heroes ever appeared in Spider-Man or The Incredible Hulk. Ditto for the various movies, though Superman would later get a brief mention in Batman & Robin.

Thor had more significant changes from his comic-book roots—and actually in some ways was closer to his Norse roots, as the Thor of mythology is a hard-drinkin’ womanizing jackass, far from the noble hero Stan Lee and Jack Kirby gave us in 1962. Meanwhile, Daredevil actually hewed fairly closely to the setup and origin from the comics, with the costume changed from the iconic red devil outfit to a simple black bodysuit and the supporting cast altered.

Despite being the developer and show-runner for the series, and despite being good friends with Bixby, Kenneth Johnson was not involved in these three movies, not even knowing about them until he started seeing commercials for them.

While both Bixby and Ferrigno return for all three, Jack Colvin only appears in the first movie. Shortly after filming of the first film, Colvin suffered a minor stroke and retired from acting, so we never saw McGee again after The Incredible Hulk Returns. The Trial of the Incredible Hulk also started the tradition of Stan Lee making cameos in Marvel screen adaptations, as he appears as a juror in the dream sequence that gives the movie its title.

“You can’t win the game unless you’d rather die than lose it!”

The Incredible Hulk ReturnsWritten and directed by Nicholas Corea
Produced by Bill Bixby & Nicholas Corea
Original release date: May 22, 1988

David Banner’s life is actually looking pretty good. Yes, he has nightmares, still, but he hasn’t turned into the Hulk in two years. He’s working as a technician at the Joshua Lambert Research Institute as David Banion. Lambert knows that he’s got a past he won’t talk about, and knows that he’s smarter than the average technician, but Lambert is willing to keep his secrets because “Banion” is responsible for the creation of the Gamma Transponder, which will be a fantastic energy source. Banner has also been making additions to it after-hours that will enable the device to possibly cure him of being the Hulk forever.

Banner is also in a relationship with a bio-geneticist at the institute, Maggie Shaw. He spends most of his time with her, but isn’t ready to move in yet—not until he’s rid of the Hulk, though she knows only that he has anger-management issues he needs to get under control.

One night, Banner finally is ready to use the Gamma Transponder on himself, but he’s interrupted by a young man who’s broken into the institute: Don Blake. A doctor who studied under Banner at Harvard ten years earlier, he recognizes “Banion” as his favorite professor from med school, whom he thought was dead.

Blake has a problem, and he hopes Banner can help him. Having always had an interest in Norse myth, he joined a climbing expedition in Norway as the doctor. During a nasty storm, he found himself drawn to a cave where he found a sarcophagus, which was covered in runes he could read, much to his surprise. In the sarcophagus was a dead body in armor and a hammer. Gripping the hammer caused the corpse to come alive as Thor, an arrogant war god who has been forbidden from entering Valhalla until he becomes more humble. He is tethered to Blake, who can summon Thor and banish him to the nether realm he was in at any time.

Banner thinks that Blake was hallucinating due to the thin atmosphere. We will now pause to be amused at the guy who turns into a big green rage monster at the slightest adrenaline spike being skeptical about this. Blake realizes he has to prove it, so he summons Thor, who shows up, is brutish and arrogant and starts trashing the lab. Banner tries desperately to keep himself calm, which lasts right up until Thor tosses him into a electrified computer bank. Thor himself realizes he’s being a jerk, and saves Banner, but the damage is done: Banner’s eyes go white and he Hulks out.

Hulk and Thor duke it out in the lab, trashing a lot of the equipment, and eventually the Hulk buggers off.

Thor manages to find a bedraggled Banner the following morning, before Blake banishes him again. Blake shows Banner the newspaper, and everyone assumes it’s a publicity stunt. One person who doesn’t, though, is Jack McGee, who has, since the end of the TV show, been fired from the National Register, amidst some nasty words to his editor. He grovels for his job back now that there’s a lead on the Hulk.

Blake promises to help Banner fix the equipment. The Gamma Transponder itself is fine, but the computer controls are trashed and need to be replaced.

Meanwhile, Lambert’s brother Zack is tired of being in his older sibling’s shadow, and works out a deal allow a mercenary named LeBeau to steal the transponder and sell it to the highest bidder, with Zack getting a cut. Part of the deal is to take Banion, whom Zack knows is the real brains behind the device. The first attempt to steal the transponder fails thanks to the Hulk. Now that a first attempt has been made, security will be increased, so LeBeau decides to kidnap Banion’s girlfriend with himself and the transponder as ransom.

LeBeau’s thugs manage this, despite the best efforts of both Thor and the Hulk. When the Hulk reverts to Banner, he decides he needs to trash the main component of the transponder before turning it over to LeBeau. Why he decides this remains unclear. Zack is not happy that they’ve kidnapped a friend and colleague, and so LeBeau shoots him. From his hospital bed, Zack tells Banner and Lambert where they’ve taken Maggie, and Blake, Thor, and Banner head there to rescue her. Lambert also shows up with a gun, and he and Banner get into an altercation that leads to Banner Hulking out. Thor, Blake, and the Hulk take down the mercenaries and rescue Maggie.

With McGee still hanging around, and all the publicity surrounding the institute, Banner realizes he must leave, and start from scratch on his search for a cure. He bids goodbye to Maggie, to Blake, and to Thor and wanders down the road to piano music…

“I was sighted until I was fourteen—I remember green.”

The Trial of the Incredible HulkWritten by Gerald Di Pego
Directed by Bill Bixby
Produced by Bill Bixby & Gerald Di Pego
Original release date: May 7, 1989

Banner, now calling himself David Belson, is working a rural migrant-labor job, but he leaves rather than suffer the constant bullying he receives at the hands of one of his coworkers. He heads to “the city” (which looks a lot like Vancouver), figuring he can get lost there.

He rents a crappy room in the shadow of a skyscraper, recently constructed by Wilson Fisk. Publicly, Fisk is a successful businessman. In reality, he’s a surveillance-obsessed crimelord, with half the police force on his payroll, as well as many other folks. He supervises a well-orchestrated jewelry heist, and two of the thieves get on the subway, into the same car as Banner and a woman named Ellie Mendez. Flush from the successful heist, one of the thieves decides to harass Mendez. At first Banner stays out of it, but eventually his heroism wins out and he tries to help her—which gets him tossed ass-over-teakettle behind a couple of seats.

Naturally, he turns into the Hulk, trashing the car and the thugs, and then taking off down the tracks. The cops find a shirtless Banner on the tracks and arrest him.

Mendez is taken to the hospital with a concussion. After a visit from Fisk’s thugs—who are let in by the floor nurse, who is also on Fisk’s payroll—Mendez tells the police that “Belson” is the one who attacked her, and Fisk’s pet thugs tried to help her.

Matt Murdock is a blind attorney-at-law, who has a thriving practice with his partner Christa Klein, and their paralegal, a former Army sergeant named Al Pettiman. Murdock has been trying very hard to bring Fisk down. For that reason, Murdock offers to represent Banner pro bono. Banner, however, refuses to cooperate and is unwilling to stand trial, fearing that the stress of it will cause him to change. Murdock doesn’t believe that he only cares about himself simply because he helped Mendez in the first place.

Banner has a clandestine conversation with Deputy Chief Tindelli, who appears to be one of the few cops who isn’t on the take. He tries to get Banner to talk, saying there’ll be no consequences (never mind that Banner has already almost been shanked once), but Banner refuses.

Murdock visits Mendez in the hospital, though she sticks with her story. Fisk orders Mendez to be killed, but she’s saved by a local vigilante called Daredevil (graffiti singing DD’s praises are all over town). Mendez is put in a secure wing, and she then calls Murdock and—livid that they tried to kill her even after she did as she was told—recants. Unfortunately, one of the security guards covering her is also on Fisk’s payroll, and he kidnaps her, taking her to Fisk Tower.

Banner has a nightmare about standing trial and turning into the Hulk. (We don’t realize it’s a dream sequence at first, though there are several hints, not the least being that the Hulk is way more violent here, tossing someone out a window to his death and strangling the prosecutor. Banner’s subconscious has a much more jaundiced view of the green guy.)

Unfortunately, the stress of the nightmare causes him to Hulk out and break out of prison, mostly by breaking the prison. When he reverts to Banner he goes to the flophouse to pack and leave town, but Daredevil is waiting for him. To keep him in town, Daredevil takes off his mask to reveal that he is Murdock.

They retire to Murdock’s house where we get his origin: fourteen-year-old Murdock saved an old man from being hit by a truck. That truck was carrying radioactive waste, which spilled and hit his eyes. He was blinded, but his other senses increased tenfold and he has a kind of radar sense that allows him to detect objects. It’s how he can function as Daredevil.

DD works with Tindelli, who has an untraceable phone link to Daredevil. Banner is willing to help Murdock save Mendez. Tindelli calls with a tip that may indicate where Mendez is being held. But after Daredevil leaves to rescue her, Tindelli calls back—the person who provided that tip is now spending money like there’s no tomorrow, and the deputy chief thinks it’s a setup. Banner hears this, and follows DD to the abandoned movie studio where she’s being held.

Sure enough, there’s an ambush, with Fisk hitting Daredevil with bright lights and loud sound to disorient him while his visor’d, ear-protected thugs beat the crap out of him. (The lights, of course, have no effect, but the sound is twice as bad for DD’s sensitive hearing.)

Banner sees this, Hulks out, and then the big dude trashes the place, though the thugs manage to spirit Mendez away. A battered Daredevil has his hands on the Hulk’s face when he calms down and changes back to Banner.

They return to Murdock’s home, where Banner scrapes the rust off his medical degree and treats Murdock, who’s moping because he got his ass handed to him. Banner gives him a pep talk, using the exact same words that Murdock used on Banner to try to get him to help him bring Fisk down. Eventually, Murdock comes around, and he puts the outfit back on.

Mendez is still being held hostage. Fisk’s right-hand man, Edgar, asks Fisk what they should do with her, and Fisk is very confused when he asks if she’s still alive. When Edgar replies in the affirmative, Fisk simply asks, “Why?” However, Edgar has taken a rather creepy shine to Mendez, and he keeps her alive.

Tindelli informs Daredevil that Fisk is gathering crime bosses from all across the country. Fisk’s plan is to unite them all into one gigunda syndicate, and he’s using the footage of Daredevil getting his ass kicked as his presentation piece (with all the Hulk footage edited out, of course). None of these crime bosses have outstanding warrants on them, so Tindelli can’t do a thing about it. But Daredevil can—he and Banner head to Fisk Tower. Daredevil takes on Fisk’s thugs, while Banner searches for Mendez. Banner arrives just in time to save Mendez’s life—the same thug who harassed her on the subway and started this whole mishegoss has been ordered by Fisk to make Edgar kill her—and Edgar actually helps Banner and Mendez escape. When Mendez points out that Fisk will kill him, Edgar says that Fisk will forgive him—he’s the only one Fisk does forgive.

Daredevil takes down Fisk’s thugs and then crashes the high-powered meeting. Fisk and Edgar escape in a hovercraft.

Mendez is safe and well, Banner decides that he needs to get back to trying to cure himself, so he’s heading to Portland to check out a new radiation lab. He and Murdock part ways, each entrusting the other with their secrets, and he wanders down the road to piano music…

“I am free…”

The Death of the Incredible HulkWritten by Gerald Di Pego
Produced and directed by Bill Bixby
Original release date: February 18, 1990

Calling himself David Bellamy and pretending to be mentally challenged, Banner now works as a janitor at a government facility (presumably the one in Portland he talked about at the end of the previous movie, though it’s never specified what city they’re in). Also working there is Dr. Ronald Pratt, whose work with radiation Banner has always admired, and whose theories were among those he studied when he first did the experiment that turned him into the Hulk way back when.

Banner has been sneaking in after hours and making adjustments to Pratt’s experiments. Pratt has been reluctant to learn his mystery guardian angel’s identity because he’s worried that he’ll go away, as his notes have been brilliant. But eventually common sense prevails, and he installs video surveillance. (Why this government facility doesn’t already have video surveillance is left as an exercise for the viewer.)

Meanwhile, we meet a chameleonic woman named Jasmin, who is working as a spy for a group of Eastern European revolutionaries who are supposedly fighting for “the cause.” What this cause is, where they’re actually from, what their true goals are, who’s funding them—none of this is ever revealed, though they seem to trade in intelligence and weapons. After Jasmin completes her job of getting information from a congressperson, her handler, Kasha, gives her her next job. Jasmin wants this to end, but then Kasha shows her a picture of her sister being held prisoner. Her sister will die if Jasmin doesn’t continue her work.

Jasmin’s next assignment is to obtain Pratt’s work.

Pratt confronts “Bellamy,” and realizes that he’s actually the supposedly dead David Banner. Pratt is stunned, but is willing to let Banner in as an unofficial consultant on the project, which might be able to cure him of being the Hulk. They actually have him change into the Hulk under controlled conditions (something Banner quails against at first, probably remembering what happened the first time he tried that), and later Banner watches the video footage in awe. He’s never actually seen the Hulk before.

Unfortunately, Pratt is about to lose his funding because his work has insufficient military applications. If they’re going to try to cure Banner, they have to do it soon before the plug is pulled.

Naturally, the night they do the experiment is the night that Jasmin infiltrates the facility, having obtained fingerprints from one of the security guards while chatting him up in a bar, while stealing another guard’s uniform from her dry cleaners.

Jasmin’s break-in forces Pratt to abort the experiment, but then things go horribly wrong, there’s a fire, Pratt is injured, and Banner Hulks out. Pratt is unconscious and is taken to the hospital, and he’s only alive because Jasmin pulls him away from the fire.

Kasha is ready to have Jasmin killed for her failure, as the facility’s in lockdown and Pratt’s in a coma, making the intelligence unavailable. Jasmin manages to save herself by mentioning Banner—he was part of whatever experiment Pratt was performing, and perhaps he knows the specifics. Jasmin is sent with two others to kidnap Banner. However, Banner manages to foil the kidnapping, aided by the distraction of the other thugs trying to kill Jasmin, whose death sentence was only stayed, not stopped.

One thug gets away, the other is shot and killed, but before he dies he reveals to Jasmin that her sister Bela is the head of their movement—she faked the kidnapping to get Jasmin to continue to work. Banner takes Jasmin to a remote cabin and treats her gunshot wound. Then he goes to visit Pratt in the hospital, but he’s still wanted in connection with the fire at the facility, so he has to sneak in—Jasmin, grateful for his aid, helps with that, using her mad spy skillz to get them into his room.

Banner’s words of encouragement (as well as mentioning a school prank Pratt was involved in) help bring Pratt out of his coma. After Banner and Jasmin leave, they are attacked by Kasha’s people, but Banner Hulks out and saves them both. Jasmin gets away on her own, while the Hulk runs off, and when he reverts to Banner, they rendezvous at the cabin. The two of them fall into bed together.

Pratt is moved to a more secure facility, but Kasha’s people manage to get him and his wife away with a stolen ambulance.

Banner and Jasmin plan to go away somewhere and start over (Banner has been doing that on a regular basis for years now, after all, and he didn’t have Jasmin’s talents for blending in and changing faces), but then Jasmin hears the radio report on Pratt’s kidnapping and reluctantly shares it with Banner. Banner has to try to rescue them, and Jasmin agrees to help, even though she just wants to go away. Jasmin works a contact of the movement who runs a car shop, and they find out that the Pratts are being held at an airfield. They leave the car salesman for the police with a note about the airfield. The federal agents who are in charge of the Pratts’ case—who are already pissed that the Pratts were kidnapped right from under their noses—head to the airfield with a mess of cops.

Bela’s people are questioning the Pratts, who are cooperating out of fear. However, once the cops arrive, the guard who sees them immediately opens fire. Things go to hell in a hurry. Banner manages to free the Pratts, Bela shoots Kasha (who has already made a play for her position), Banner Hulks out, Bela tries to escape in a plane, but the Hulk jumps onto it. Bela rather stupidly tries to fire her weapon inside the plane, which results in it exploding. The Hulk plummets to the tarmac and dies in Jasmin’s arms.

“When the troll’s upon you, you’re a mighty fighter!”

It’s funny, rewatching Returns and Trial, I had no trouble remembering everything that happened. Even though it’s been decades since I watched them last, I still had clear, detailed memories of many of the events and performances in those two movies.

For Death, I had nothing but a vague memory of a scene here and a scene there. Which is especially odd given that two favorite actors of mine—Elizabeth Gracen and Andreas Katsulas—are in it. But where watching the first two was revisiting a couple of old friends, the third was almost like new.

Watching it again now, the reason is that Death just isn’t very good. Honestly, neither is Returns, but it’s mitigated by excellent performances by Steve Levitt as Blake and especially Eric Kramer as Thor. Kramer embraces the joyous-warrior aspect of Thor wholeheartedly, and it’s great fun to watch, and Levitt’s lost-at-sea Blake sets up a possible TV show nicely. Just as the changes to the Hulk from the comics made for a strong television narrative, so too would have the changes they made to Thor. It’s funny, by the time this movie aired, the comics themselves had abandoned the Don Blake identity for Thor. Unlike many changes made to comic book characters, this one has remained permanent (with one brief exception), a testament to how uninteresting and pointless it was.

However, this take on it had potential: the two of them sharing a relationship instead of being two different aspects of the same person. I particularly like that both Blake and Thor had journeys they needed to go on (the former toward meaning in his life, the latter toward humility, both of them toward heroism), and I’m disappointed that we didn’t get to see that journey.

The story that introduced them was dumber than a box of, um, hammers. (Sorry.) It makes no sense for Banner to agree to set aside the experiment that has the potential to cure the nightmare of his existence so he can have a conversation with a student he hasn’t seen in a decade. It makes no sense that Banner would trash the vital component to the Gamma Transponder.

And it especially makes no sense that the bad guys would shoot the younger Lambert. Seriously, these guys are mercenaries and thieves. Murder is a more serious offense than thievery, and one that will bring more attention from law-enforcement down upon one. Plus, of course, shooting someone and not making sure he’s dead before you walk away runs the risk of him, say, telling someone where you’re hiding out and going after you. (This is made worse by the fact that he might tell someone who turns into a big green rage-monster, but one can understand their inability to predict that ahead of time.)

Even more frustrating is how they botch Banner’s romance. The opening of the movie is all about the happy life he has with Maggie, and then Maggie becomes utterly irrelevant (except as a kidnap victim, snore) for the rest of the movie. At the end of the movie, he leaves Maggie and the institute behind without any kind of conversation or anything, he just leaves because it’s the end of the movie and that’s what’s supposed to happen. He doesn’t even make a token attempt to stay or to consider Maggie’s feelings. It just feels perfunctory.

Again, though, Returns is worth sitting through the dumb plot (and Charles Napier’s hilarious attempt at a Cajun accent) for the Thor stuff, plus Bill Bixby remains superb as Banner. I especially like that Banner doesn’t let Blake off the hook for how badly he’s screwed everything up.

Death has no such redeeming features. The bad guys are so incredibly generic that we have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. Seriously, nothing about this group is explained. They all talk with Eastern European accents, plus Andreas Katsulas plays one of them, so we know they’re evil, but—what? I mean, they’re just there to be evil and talk vaguely about causes and that’s it.

And once again they botch a romance, though this one is worse. In Returns, they do an excellent job of establishing Banner and Maggie’s romance at the top of the movie—the problem is that it doesn’t go anywhere after that. In Death, the “romance” between Banner and Jasmin just doesn’t track. Them falling into bed together actually works—they’re both in a bad place emotionally, as Banner’s had yet another cure yanked out from under him (latest in a series! collect ’em all!), while Jasmin has had her entire life ripped apart, and finding solace in each others’ arms is a natural outgrowth of what they’re going through. But the leap from that to running away together and being each others’ twue wuv strains credulity to the breaking point. We’ve seen Banner have relationships with several women, and his romance with Jasmin is the only one that isn’t convincing as a romance.

Which is too bad, because Elizabeth Gracen is, as always, superb, showing Jasmin’s spycraft as well as her pain and anguish. And it’s fun watching her play different roles, and I particularly enjoyed her “duh!” expression when Banner asked how they could possibly get past hospital security to visit Pratt. Gracen has always impressed me with her acting work since she played Amanda on Highlander: The Series and its spinoff Highlander: The Raven, and she outshines the limitations of the script.

One of those limitations is the really appalling impersonation Banner does of a mentally challenged janitor, which just feels oogy watching it now. Having said that, Bixby is also brilliant here, particularly the friendship he develops with Pratt, which is as natural and joyous as his friendship with Elaina Marks in the pilot.

As with Returns, the ending is just wrong, though it’s worse here. The plane takes off, Hulk is holding onto it and then Bela just whips out a gun a starts shooting? These revolutionaries (or whatever the hell they are) are good enough to steal a scientist and his wife from under the nose of federal agents but they’re not bright enough to know not to shoot a gun on an airplane in flight? Really?

And then we have the death of the incredible Hulk because he falls from a great height. And that’s it. It’s the most anticlimactic climax ever and just sits there on the screen, posing a lot more questions than it answers.

Questions that will never be answered, as the response to this movie was so justifiably putrid that the planned sequel was trashed.

Between these two, though, we have one movie that actually succeeds. The storyline hews pretty closely to Frank Miller’s first run on Daredevil—the run that vaulted DD to a more prominent role in the Marvel Universe, where previously he’d pretty much just been a second-rate Spider-Man—during which Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime, became DD’s primary bad guy. The reinterpretation of Fisk as someone obsessed with video surveillance is an interesting one (and is particularly amusing to watch two decades later when such surveillance is commonplace), and no one ever went wrong casting John Rhys-Davies, who brings a slightly surreal menace to Fisk.

While Matt Murdock’s supporting cast has been altered—partner Foggy Nelson and secretary Karen Page have been changed to partner Christa Klein and secretary Al Pettiman—these changes still work in context. I can certainly see how they might want to have the potential blonde love interest be Murdock’s law partner rather than his subordinate, and the dynamic among the three of them is nicely established early on. As with Thor in Returns, the Daredevil TV show we never got to see had the potential to be interesting. Rex Smith’s Murdock is a convincing crusader, and while I wasn’t completely happy with the smarmy voice he put on as Daredevil, he made the dual identity work, particularly with the change in body language. Murdock is very stiff and deliberate, but once Smith puts the costume on, his movements become much more fluid.

Bixby also does a nice job with a Banner who has pretty much hit rock bottom. (This is supposed to be symbolized by his growing a beard, but honestly? He looked better with the beard. I was disappointed when he shaved it. I kinda wish they had had Ferrigno grow a beard to go along with it, but that was probably asking too much.) Best of all, though, is that the heroism that is inherent to the character, that we saw in the very second movie when he couldn’t resist trying to help the disabled girl visiting her father’s grave, is still there, as he can’t turn his back on Ellie Mendez.

Both Marta DuBois and scripter Gerald Di Pego deserve a ton of credit for the character of Mendez, who could easily be just the generic damsel in distress, but both the script and DuBois’s performance give her far more agency than that, in particular her anger at being targeted for death even after playing ball, and again when she rails at Fisk for violating her life. The character is a perfect metaphor for Fisk’s power over the city, as she was attacked while commuting, and instead of being able to get justice for her attack, her life is threatened and she’s used as a pawn against Daredevil, solely because Fisk a) gives priority to protecting his employee over justice for his victim and b) needs her to stop his enemy. But she’s also a person in her own right, not just a victim, and it’s a bravura performance.

An interesting casting choice in Trial, also. Our good guys include an African-American (Pettiman), an Italian-American (Tindelli), and a Latina (Mendez), while all the criminals are white. Even Turk, a low-level thug from the comics, is re-cast with a white guy. I’m especially grateful that the only Italian character is not one of the mobsters, as Italians are almost always either mobsters or comic relief on television and in movies, and it grows tiresome.

Bixby also directed both Trial and Death, and he is to be commended not only for the strong performances, but also for some impressive camera work. In both movies he uses closeups of Lou Ferrigno’s eyes to good effect during transformation sequences, and he makes some other clever cinematographic choices to show the Hulk’s rampages to vary things up a bit. My favorite is the Hulk’s breakout from prison in Trial, where we just follow the trail of destruction, which is even more effective than yet another Ferrigno-destroys-things sequence.

As an attempt to introduce more Marvel heroes to television, these movies should have been successful. These interpretations of Thor and Daredevil might well have made for good TV. Alas, it was not to be, though one can hardly complain about the work that Chris Hemsworth and Charlie Cox have done in the roles more recently. (The less said about Ben Affleck the better, though you can be assured I’ll say plenty when we get to the 2003 Daredevil movie in this rewatch…)

Next week we’ll have a double-shot of the rewatch, as we’ll take a special Hallowe’en look at the four Crow movies on Tuesday, then on Friday we shall tackle the 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trilogy.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/10/27/first-draft-of-the-mcu-the-incredible-hulk-returns-the-trial-of-the-incredible-hulk-and-the-death-of-the-incredible-hulk/feed/36Good Retcons and Bad B-Plots — Star Trek Discovery’s “Lethe”https://www.tor.com/2017/10/23/good-retcons-and-bad-b-plots-star-trek-discoverys-lethe/
https://www.tor.com/2017/10/23/good-retcons-and-bad-b-plots-star-trek-discoverys-lethe/#commentsMon, 23 Oct 2017 18:00:03 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=308173One of the most challenging things one can do when creating serial narrative is retroactive continuity, or retcon: filling in a gap or establishing something about a character or situation that was previously unknown. When done properly, it can bring an entire character into focus. (To use a comic book example, when Magneto was established […]]]>

One of the most challenging things one can do when creating serial narrative is retroactive continuity, or retcon: filling in a gap or establishing something about a character or situation that was previously unknown.

When done properly, it can bring an entire character into focus. (To use a comic book example, when Magneto was established as a Holocaust survivor.) When done improperly, of course, it can be disastrous. (To use another comic book example, establishing that Norman Osborn raped Gwen Stacey, and she mothered children from that.)

Way back in 1967, we first met the characters of Sarek and Amanda in “Journey to Babel.” In that episode, it was established that Spock turned down going to the Vulcan Science Academy, instead choosing to enlist in Starfleet. Because of that decision (which was later dramatized in the 2009 Star Trek), Sarek and Spock stopped speaking to each other.

Now, many might think this makes Sarek kind of a jackass. I certainly did, as this is a crappy reason to stop talking to your own son. But then, in the same episode, Sarek made racist comments about Tellarites and it was also established that he kept the truth about a serious heart condition from his wife. So, while Mark Lenard imbued the character with tremendous gravitas, it doesn’t change the fact that he was a jackass.

In “Lethe,” we get some fascinating revelations about Burnham that do an excellent job of moving her character arc along. But we also get a new insight into the greater tapestry of the Star Trek universe—and, not coincidentally, get the first good reason why this series should take place in the TOS era as opposed to long after the 24th-century spinoffs. We find out that the VSA was only willing to accept one of Sarek’s “experiments” (the delivery of the word with maximum distaste was beautifully done by Jonathan Whittaker as the director of the academy), and Sarek chose Spock over Burnham. And then Spock went and rejected going to the VSA, choosing Starfleet instead.

And, because Sarek is a jackass, he kept that all to himself—just like he kept his heart condition to himself, and just like 100 years later, he’ll keep his Bendii Syndrome to himself—and let Burnham (and Amanda, and probably Spock) believe that Burnham washed out of the program, and then when Spock refused to sign up (something that could even have been motivated in part by the VSA keeping his foster sister out), Sarek just stopped talking to his son.

I absolutely love this development, because it adds texture to the Spock-Sarek relationship, including their later inability to speak to each other as established in the “Unification” two-parter.

Plus, Burnham makes tremendous progress in this episode. She realizes that she’s trying a little too hard to mold Tilly in her own image, and backs off on her rigorous training of her. She also actually smiles (pretty sure this week is the first time Burnham has cracked a smile on screen), and makes a new friend in Tyler.

Tyler is also integrated into the crew, made the new chief of security to replace Landry. There’s a fan theory floating around that Tyler is actually a surgically altered Voq (the actor credited as Voq has done no publicity, has no other credits on IMDB, and his last name is Iqbal, which is Shazad Latif’s birth name—the whole theory of Voq/Tyler is spelled out in this post on Trek Movie), and we get some minor evidence of it here. In the “previously on” scenes, we see Voq conversing with L’Rell, a scene that doesn’t have much bearing on this episode, and Voq nods and then raises his head when he hears something that surprises him. Then, later in the episode, Lorca makes Tyler chief of security, and Tyler nods and raises his head in the exact same way. (Voq did it also when T’Kuvma made him torchbearer in “The Battle at the Binary Stars.”)

It’s a pity the B-plot is such a disaster. The minute Admiral Cornwell threatened Lorca’s position, you knew something horrible was going to happen to her. I honestly expected her to be killed by the Klingons, not captured, and I’m grateful that Kol sees her as a valuable hostage, as I like Jayne Brook’s performance as Cornwell a great deal. But still, this was a really hoary and predictable and lazy writer’s trick to create artificial suspense and then restore the status quo unconvincingly. I also find it impossible to credit that the only reason why Lorca hasn’t had his command taken away from him is because everyone’s blinded by his brilliance except for Cornwell, who’s a lover of his. That just doesn’t track.

Still, it’s good to see Burnham’s redemption arc continue apace. It’s also fun to see the Burnham-Tilly relationship progress, and the new hippy-dippy Stamets (he really does sound like he’s done shrooms—which he kinda has) is hilarious. Having said that, there’s no explanation for how they use the spore drive to get to the nebula, since the tardigrade’s gone. Is Stamets still plugging himself into it to make it work? And I’m extremely disappointed at the lack of Lorca’s reaction to Saru and Burnham freeing the tardigrade at the end of last week. That was a blown opportunity.

Oh, and shirts that say “DISCO”? Really? Somehow, I can’t see Sulu and Chekov jogging through the Enterprise corridors in shirts that say “ENTER.” Or Janeway and Torres jogging through Voyager corridors with shirts that say “VOYA.” Or Kira and Dax jogging through Defiant corridors in shirts that say “DEFI.” Or— Well, you get the idea…

However, this episode does wonders for the main character and does a superlative job of integrating the storyline into the greater tapestry of the Star Trek universe.

]]>https://www.tor.com/2017/10/23/good-retcons-and-bad-b-plots-star-trek-discoverys-lethe/feed/117“This is so f***ing cool!” — Star Trek Discovery’s “Choose Your Pain”https://www.tor.com/2017/10/16/this-is-so-fucking-cool-star-trek-discoverys-choose-your-pain/
https://www.tor.com/2017/10/16/this-is-so-fucking-cool-star-trek-discoverys-choose-your-pain/#commentsMon, 16 Oct 2017 16:53:43 +0000https://www.tor.com/?p=305972In 1966, Star Trek put a black woman and an Asian man on the bridge, and made them senior officers, a year later adding a Russian man to the mix. In an era of civil rights unrest, war in southeast Asia, and the ongoing cold war with the Soviet Union, showing those three working together […]]]>

In 1966, Star Trek put a black woman and an Asian man on the bridge, and made them senior officers, a year later adding a Russian man to the mix. In an era of civil rights unrest, war in southeast Asia, and the ongoing cold war with the Soviet Union, showing those three working together with the white folks (not to mention the pointy-eared alien) was huge.

In 1993, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine put a black man at the top of the ensemble, and had an Arab doctor. The former was so radical that it had rarely been seen before or since, and the latter is also vanishingly rare.

And now, in 2017, Star Trek Discovery finally gives us a main character on a Trek TV show who is not heterosexual.

It’s kind of appalling that it took until the last year or so for any Trek to acknowledge that there might be homosexuals in the future that aren’t in the Mirror Universe. Stabs were taken at it, particularly on DS9 (“Rejoined,” theaforementionedMUepisodes), as well as TNG‘s spectacularly lame-ass attempt to address gender issues in “The Outcast,” but it wasn’t until Star Trek Beyond gave Sulu a husband that we even got a hint of it.

“Choose Your Pain,” however, goes full-tilt boogie, firmly establishing that Stamets is in a long-term, cohabitational relationship with Dr. Hugh Culber (played by Wilson Cruz, so it’s not only a male-male couple, it’s an interracial one!).

This particular lack has been maddening, because Trek has, over the last five decades, been very good about showing that things will be better in the future, at least as long as you’re not gay. Being black doesn’t stop Uhura or La Forge or Sisko or Burnham from becoming officers in Starfleet. Being female doesn’t stop Janeway or Hernandez or Georgiou from being captains (no matter what Janice Lester might think…). We’ve seen interracial couples, interspecies couples, but never same-sex couples.

Until the last couple years, and the first was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment with Sulu (well, two moments—the other was his realization that the Yorktown was the target and he glances at a picture of husband and kid). Now, though, we have an actual honest-to-goodness opening-credits regular who’s not heterosexual. (I hasten to add that this only applies to the screen iterations of Trek. The tie-in fiction has had plenty of different sexualities represented over the years, and it’s way past fucking time that the main canon caught up to the ancillary fiction.)

We don’t actually find that out until the end of the episode, though, and it’s an amusing coda to the public bickering we’ve gotten over two episodes between Stamets and Culber. (It reminds me favorably of the end of the first episode of Hill Street Blues that Frank Furillo and Joyce Davenport, who’ve been at odds in the precinct all episode, are revealed in the last scene to be lovers.)

Apropos of nothing, I also like that Culber isn’t the chief medical officer. Discovery is continuing its pattern of showing us the other guys on the ship, it isn’t just the senior staff. Yes, we’re seeing lots of Lorca and Saru, but our other main characters are the people working on one particular project on the ship (the most important of the 300 or so at the moment, but not the only one). Stamets isn’t the chief engineer, Culber isn’t the CMO, and Tilly’s just a cadet.

Anyhow, what about the episode itself? Parts of it are brilliant, parts of it, not so much.

The second, of course, is Rainn Wilson’s superb turn as HarcourtFentonMudd. Wilson does an amazing job here, simultaneously channeling Roger C. Carmel but still giving very much a Rainn Wilson performance.

Though this leads me to my biggest problem with the episode, which is Lorca and Tyler (hey, look, Shazad Latif finally showed up after being in the credits for four episodes!) leaving Mudd behind. In a word: no. And again I say: no. Mudd is a Federation citizen. Yes, he sold them out, but that means you bring his ass back to Federation space so he can stand trial. You do not leave him with the enemy. Leaving aside that it makes no sense from a compassionate standpoint (though that’s a big deal when we’re talking Trek), it also makes no sense from a tactical perspective. Even if you accept that Lorca is a dick—which he totally is—there’s still no logic to leaving Mudd behind.

Too many Stupid Television Tricks in this episode. I really want to take every single scriptwriter for TV shows and movies and shake them by the shoulders until they understand that surveillance in prison cells is extremely common. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen prisoners making plans or having private conversations in prison cells and then either a) being able to fool the bad guys because of the plans they made in the cell or b) being surprised that there’s a listening device and/or one of the prisoners is, in fact, a mole. “Choose Your Pain” gives us b), and it’s idiotic. Hell, the episode that introduced the Klingons established that Klingons themselves are always under surveillance. They wouldn’t need a listening device on Mudd’s pet bug (a bug on a bug!) when they could just put sensors in there, and Lorca should know that.

Also when they escape, why is it Lorca’s so willing to vaporize other Klingons, but only wound L’Rell? Because L’Rell’s a regular, so we can’t kill her! Except plot-wise, that makes no sense.

Speaking of things that make no sense, we have Lorca’s backstory. A captain who killed his entire crew rather than have them fall into Klingon hands—and then he gets a plum assignment with tons of autonomy? That doesn’t track at all. I’m willing to wait and see on that one, because we’re getting a description after the fact. There could be a lot more to that. At least, I hope there is, because if that really is what happened to Lorca at the top of the war, he should at worst be in the cell next to Burnham and at best be at a desk on Earth pushing paper.

Back on the Discovery, though, we get the good stuff. The ongoing dynamic between Burnham and Saru is phenomenal, beautifully played by Sonequa Martin-Green and Doug Jones. I love how Saru is the only person who can break through Burnham’s Vulcan mask, and I like the reveal as to why Saru truly resents Burnham: she denied him the opportunity to be Georgiou’s first officer that she had. Burnham giving Saru the telescope she was willed is a nice touch at the end.

Saru’s methodical approach to being acting captain is fun to see, also, with him calling up the names of great captains and seeing how he compares and where he’s deficient. I also like him deciding not to compile that data at the end, because he knows he made the right decision.

I’m also glad to see that everyone’s realizing that torturing a living being isn’t the ideal way to achieve your nifty-keeno science project. Unfortunately there’s a war on in general and a kidnapped captain in particular, so that has to be put that aside in order to rescue Lorca.

The ending is totally Star Trek. Once Lorca is rescued, Saru knows that they can’t keep torturing a living being (especially one that might be sentient, as Culber informs us), so he all but orders Burnham to set it free (his exact words are to “save its life”), and makes sure to do so before Lorca has been cleared to return to duty, because we all know Lorca won’t give a shit.

Good news: Burnham’s solution of transferring tardigrade DNA to a human seems to work, as Stamets injects himself and uses the spore drive to get them out of enemy territory. Bad news: something seems to be horribly wrong with Stamets, based on the horror-movie moment at the end when his reflection moved at a different speed. Curiouser and curiouser…

Keith R.A. DeCandido is going for his third-degree black belt in Kenshikai karate this week. By the time next week’s Discovery review appears, he hopes to have that third stripe on his belt, assuming all goes well during the three-day promotion process. The appropriate salutation would not be “good luck,” but rather the Japanese phrase, “ganbatte,” which means, “try your best.”